Page 213 - The Art of Designing Embedded Systems

200 THE ART OF DESIGNING EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

The complexity of software will only make this worse. Design a
product, get it out the door, and there’s a good chance you’ll be involved
in its maintenance forever.
You’ve got to take charge of your career. Manage it. Keep learning
and stretching your skill set.
But I wonder how many techs-turned-engineers have the background
to keep up in this rapidly advancing world. Similarly, I wonder how many
college-educated designers remember enough math to understand what’s
going on. I did a survey recently of several graduate engineers. None could
integrate a simple function. None remembered much about the transfer
function of a transistor. Though these were digital folks who work with
ICs, does this mean that the background and the theory drummed into
them so long ago is worthless? Does it imply that only the youngest, those
who haven’t had time to forget, should work on the newest and the most
complex systems?
I wish I knew the answer. I’ve tried not to discriminate on the basis
of a degree, having had some wonderful experiences with very smart, very
hard-working people who became engineers by the force of their will. But
over time I see fewer of these. More and more rksumks are filled with BS,
CS, several minors, one or more masters, and the like. There’s a competi-
tive pressure that raises the stakes in job seeking. If one degree is good, we
seem to think more is better.
Clearly, any large organization will screen non-degreed people out
before they can demonstrate their (possibly) astonishing abilities.
Engineering is a very diverse discipline. We need thinkers and doers,
inventors and implementers, designers and troubleshooters. Sometimes
one person contains all of these skills, though more often a team comes to-
gether to complement each other’s skills. The whole is greater than the
parts.
When it’s time to hire, most of us look for the standard require-
ments, probably including some sort of degree. I like to use the SWAN
model: Smart, Works hard, Ambitious, and Nice. Though hard to gauge at
an interview, these qualities almost guarantee a decent worker. When hir-
ing a nun-entry-level person, the SWAN model, coupled with what
they’ve done in the past, is a far better indicator of success than any
sheepskin.
As someone who rejects our fascination with form over substance, I
think that good, non-degreed engineers are a valuable asset only a fool
would reject. However, not getting a degree is clearly a mistake. One just
cannot compete in the job market without this prerequisite. I know-I
dropped out of college three courses short of a BSEE.