Page 26 - The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design

Barry Harvey

2. How to Grow Strong, Healthy Engineers

Graduating engineering students have a rough time of it lately. Used to
be, most grads were employable and could be hired for many jobs. Ten
years ago and earlier, there were a lot of jobs. Now, there aren't so many
and employers demand relevant course work for the myriad of esoteric
pursuits in electrical engineering. Of those grads that do get hired, the
majority fail in their first professional placement.
We should wonder, is this an unhealthy industry for young engineers?
Well, I guess so. Although I am productive and comfortable now, I was
not successful in my first three jobs, encompassing nine years of profes-
sional waste. Although I designed several analog ICs that worked in this
period, none made it to market.
Let me define what I call professional success:
The successful engineer delivers to his or her employer at least 2M
times the yearly salary in directly attributable sales or efficiency. It may
take years to assess this.
For many positions, it's easy to take this measure. For others, such as
in quality assurance, one assays the damage done to the company for not
executing one's duties. This is more nebulous and requires a wider busi-
ness acumen to make the measure. At this point, let me pose what I think
Is the central function of the engineer:
Engineers create, support, and sell machines.
That's our purpose. A microprocessor is a machine; so is a hammer or
a glove. I'll call anything which extends human ability a machine.
It doesn't stop with the designer: the manufacturing workers and engi-
neers really make the machines, long-term. There's lots of engineering
support, and all for making the machines and encouraging our beloved
customers to buy them. Some people don't understand or savor this defi-
nition, but it's been the role of engineers since the beginning of the in-
dustrial revolution. I personally like it. I like the structure of business, the
creation of products, the manufacture of them, and the publicizing of
them. Our products are like our children, maybe more like our pets. They
have lives, some healthy and some sickly. Four of my ICs have healthy,
popular lives; ten are doing just OK; and six are just not popular in the
market. Others have died.
A young engineering student won't ever hear of this in school. Our
colleges' faculties are uneasy with the engineers' charter. The students