Getting (back) into EE

[redsprite]

Warning: angst follows.

I graduated in 2003 with a MSEE from a pretty good school. I concentrated on analog integrated circuits and computer software. I find both topics equally interesting. It was always easier for me to find software internships, so I never got any summer experience as an EE - which I now recognize to be a mistake but that's water under the bridge. So when I graduated I found a job as a software engineer. Then this year I moved to a better job, still doing software. Its a dream company - I am really happy. And since it is a small company, there are several people with "dual" roles. Like MechE and ID. I'm hoping to eventually become a dual EE and software.

I know that I could design a circuit to do what is needed in our product - but when I look at someone else's circuit my brain totally blanks. It's been about 3 years since I last did any circuit work in school and I've lost a lot of the stuff I used to be able to just rattle off. I remember what a current mirror looks like, but for the life of me I couldn't tell you why it works that way. The other problem is that I spent so much time learning about silicon - hand layout even - that in school we didn't cover such practicalities as ESD protection (which is a BIG DEAL in my industry) and PCB layout.

I want the EEs to eventually start giving me some of their excess work, but if I don't shake the rust off that doesn't look too likely. Am I just dumb for forgetting this much so quickly? And how can I achieve this dual role?

 

[kchayfie]

I might be stating the obvious here, but have you spent any time looking back over the notes you took in school (or even the textbooks you used)? I occasionally come up against problems relating to topics that I couldn't understand in school and when I take the time to check back through my files, it suddenly makes much more sense than it ever did back then. Even looking through the same textbook jogs my memory of what the lecturers had to say at the time and takes me back to when the information was first implanted in my brain.

 

[MikeHalloran]

I'm not sure that it's possible to maintain a dual role, if one of them is software. Keeping up with the bleeding edge of software silliness/ makework/ obfuscation seems to be a full time job all by itself. If you fall off the crest of that wave, you'll have to paddle really hard to get back on again. Since the world started down the C road, every new generation makes programmers less productive, so the demand for them mushrooms, and the price stays pretty high. I'd say you have an incentive to keep up to date and stay on the software side for as long as you can stand it.

On the hardware side, you might amuse yourself, and rediscover/ repolish some rusty skills, by doing projects at home. At work, you might be able to help out with test boxes or engineering prototypes and throwaways, but it would be irresponsible to assign production circuits to rusty designers, so don't expect much of that.

I know maybe a hundred EEs. I'd estimate that three of them could build a current mirror from transistors, two of those could explain how it works in a subjective way, and only one could actually analyze it and predict its performance with numbers. He's been out of work for four years. The rest of them just plug 'em in.









Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[IRstuff]

Ditto the suggestion on reviewing notes and textbooks.

I think that it should be possible to get back up to speed on circuit design. Many of the engineers at work do wind up in dual roles, particularly if they have have to create VHDL descriptions of FPGAs.

TTFN

 

[redsprite]

Yes, I am reviewing some chapters in my textbooks. I've been making an effort to understand the circuits that I am writing software for.