“I knew I wanted to be an engineer from the time I was about 8 or 9 years old. I remember getting a Bigfoot truck radio and tearing it apart to try to see how it worked (this was when monster trucks seemed to be much more popular and, of course, Bigfoot was the king of them all!). I had this curiosity from a young age about electronics which blossomed once I was able to take electronics at my high school.”
Find out more about what Jonathan has to say about being an engineer in his "Day in the Life" interview below.
What projects do you work on?
I work as an applications engineer in the high-speed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) group. I support customers using our ADCs in different types of applications such as communications, military/aerospace, instrumentation, and measurement. I’d say that most of my work is in the area of communications. As an applications engineer I assist our customers in their evaluation and selection of our ADCs. I also report our customers’ feedback to our design and marketing communities to help make future products better.
Describe a typical day at your job?
This is a hard question to answer for an applications engineer. By the very nature of the work, there isn’t really such a thing as a planned day. As best as one can try to plan, there are typically ‘fires’ that occur during the work day that must be attended to. These are mostly things like customer issues, questions from our field engineers, important data on a product that requires analysis, or just an urgent request from a colleague for assistance. I write data sheets, design product evaluation boards for products and generate application notes on how to use our products. I also have the opportunity to write a monthly blog for EE Times’ Planet Analog. Also, I field questions and occasionally blog on ADI’s EngineerZone. This is why I enjoy applications engineering as much as I do. It is never monotonous; each day brings new adventures and issues to troubleshoot.
Image Source: http://pixabay.com/en/teacher-drawing-desk-meeting-plan-32747/
How did you get started working in this field?
I knew I wanted to be an engineer from the time I was about 8 or 9 years old. I remember getting a Bigfoot truck radio and tearing it apart to try to see how it worked (this was when monster trucks seemed to be much more popular and, of course, Bigfoot was the king of them all!). I had this curiosity from a young age about electronics which blossomed once I was able to take electronics at my high school. We did not have a lot of advanced options for courses because I was in a small town, but we had a great electronics teacher. I got hooked on electronics when I took these classes. As a matter of fact, I even convinced the electronics teacher to allow me to take Electronics III the last half of my senior year of high school while taking Electronics II. That is how much I enjoyed it! I also remember the old film reels that we watched talking about Tesla, Edison, Kirchoff, and all the other fathers of electrical engineering…do you guys remember when videos were on a reel of film? Long before mpeg, Blu-ray, DVD, and VHS!
What sort of training or edu
cation do you have?
This is an interesting question…so where do I get started. Well, let’s go back to those days in high school. I took those electronics classes and got hooked, but initially I did not want to go to a four-year college. I started my journey at Forsyth Technical Community College, Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the Electronics Technology program. We had a presentation from UNC-Charlotte about the Electrical Engineering Technology program and how an associate’s degree would have only go so far and so I decided to go to UNC-Charlotte and complete an Electrical Engineering Bachelor’s degree. Just before my senior year I decided I’d like to pursue my Master’s degree. As it turned out, I followed my research advisor from UNC-Charlotte to Auburn University. He took a new position as a professor at Auburn and asked me to join him. It is actually a funny story. When he first asked me, I actually asked “Where is Auburn?” However, after visiting campus I fell in love and if you ask many of my coworkers today they’d have no idea I went to UNC-Charlotte. But they definitely know I went to Auburn! In the words of the Auburn creed – “I believe in Auburn and love it.” And I can’t leave this topic without a hearty “War Eagle!” (Image Source: https://flic.kr/p/5rX9P8)
What skills or personal qualities are good for this job?
To be an applications engineer it is a must to have great personal skills, a desire to help others and to work well within a team. It is important to have this skill because the job requires interfacing to customers, field applications engineers, other local applications engineers, product engineers, test engineers, design engineers, marketing, and management…that’s a long list of people! Also, an applications engineer needs to be more of a “jack of all trades, master of none” in my opinion. This is not to say that one cannot have any type of specialization, but more that we have to be well rounded as and understand many different areas.
Does your job involve working on a particular industry or technology?
Most of the customers I support work in the communications sector, specifically wireless infrastructure. These are the guys designing the radios that go up into the base station towers and keep us all connected via our mobile devices. I also interface with customers in the military/aerospace and instrumentation markets. My latest work has exposed me to our new GSPS ADC offerings which are the first for ADI. It has been fun charting new territory.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
There are really two things I enjoy about being an applications engineer (do I really have to pick just one?). First I enjoy the people. I am and always have been a people person. I like to talk to folks to find out more about them and to find common interests. One of the fun ways to do so is by supporting the ADI booth at the annual International Microwave Symposium. I thoroughly enjoy attending to get an opportunity to interface with others in the industry. The other thing I enjoy is the constant change. An applications engineer does not have a boring day at the office! There is always something new to learn and I can count on changing my plans as I go through the day as something unexpected usually comes up.
What changes in this field do you expect to see in the future?
First, I’d like to see a shift at the university level that exposes engineering students to the multiple roles that an engineering degree enables students to pursue upon graduating. For example, I had no idea when I was attending college that applications engineering even existed, but as it turns out it has been the perfect fit for me. One thing I can see in the future is the increased dependency from customers on applications engineers to provide reference designs. Engineering budgets are being reduced so companies are looking to suppliers to provide more complete designs that they can then take and use as building blocks in their own systems. (Image Source: http://pixabay.com/en/office-meeting-business-partners-336368/)
Are there any common misconceptions about this type of work?
Most folks that I interface with daily (outside the office) don’t really have an idea of what I do. I grew up in a small town in rural North Carolina. Most folks I graduated high school with are still very close by. Even I couldn’t resist the pull to get closer to my roots (I’m now living about one hour away from my home town). So when people ask what I do my usual response is that I work on components that go in the radios up on the cell towers that their mobile phone talks to. This is usually met with a somewhat blank stare but at least it gives them an idea what I work on. There is just a simpler way of living in most parts of this state and that is one of the things I like about it. When I go home at the end of the day I can join right in and live a bit more simply after a day full of complexity. (Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Future_plate_blue.svg)
What is your advice to someone interested in this field?
Make sure to get a good set of fundamentals in college; you will need every bit of it to prepare to be an engineer when you graduate. Learn how to learn. It is simple and maybe redundant, but very important to keep in mind. As an engineer I never stop learning. It is important to get the basic engineering principles in college, but equally important to understand that we will continually be learning as we go through life.
What’s your desk look like?
It isn’t as bad as some I’ve seen but I have so many things going on at any given time that I have to keep things out on my desk to see as a reminder. I am really bad for having sticky notes on my desk top and on my computer screen. These are for important items that I need to make sure to remember! Maybe I am a bit old school in that respect…couldn’t I just use the notes feature in my iPhone? Well, no! I’d forget to check it!
What advice do you have for students looking to get into engineering?
I would echo my comments above. Make sure to get the basics down in college and understand that you’ll never quit learning. I’d also add that it takes perseverance, patience, inquisitiveness, and a strong desire to be an engineer. Make sure that you are willing to put the time and effort into doing what it takes. It is not the easiest path to take in college and sometimes may seem like one of the least rewarding, but ultimately it actually is one of the most rewarding fields to go into.
What’s the one thing you wished you knew before starting your engineering career?
Dilbert’s Salary Theorem, which states: "Scientists and engineers can never earn as much as administrators and sales people."
This theorem can now be proved mathematically:
Given:
• Power = Work / Time and,
• Knowledge is Power
Substituting Knowledge for Power, we obtain: Knowledge = Work/ Time
If Time = Money, then: Knowledge = Work/ Money
Solving this equation for Money, we obtain:
Money = Work/ Knowledge
Therefore, as knowledge approaches zero, money approaches infinity, regardless of the amount of work done.
Conclusion: the less you know, the more you make.
(Equation Source: http://www.csm.ornl.gov/~frome/dilbert.html)
What’s the most frequent analog question you get?
Can you please review this schematic and make sure everything looks okay for the ADC?
ADCs are becoming more and more complex which makes it that much more important to be sure that the device has the proper supporting circuitry. The common areas to look at are the analog input network (appropriate resistors/capacitors and topology), power supply input network (appropriate ferrite beads if any, supply isolation, proper decoupling), and overall general connectivity (is everything hooked up right?). Generally the folks generating the schematics are not ADC experts. They understand things at a system level and know a good bit generally how ADCs function, but typically need just a little extra input to make sure things are correct. Not all ADCs are created equally either, so different ADCs may require different considerations.
