Hey Folks!

Because my brain decided I didn't have enough going on already (and a healthy dose of thinking "wow, that's a good idea" when Cherish mentioned it to me), I've started EngineerBlogs.org with a couple other engineer bloggers! I've already mentioned it on Twitter, but I thought I should write about it here as well.

The lineup right now is me, Cherish, Fluxor and FrauTech.  But we're looking for more! If you're interested, check out the "Write For Us" page on the site and fill out the form there. We have some requirements, but if you're a good writer and have been doing it for a little while, we'd love to hear from you.

As for me, hopefully posting there on a schedule (a requirement) will get me back into the swing of posting here. If not, you can always read some of my stuff over there or just listen to my nasally voice on The Amp Hour. Hope you enjoy the new site!

"Wha?"

That's what you said when you read the title, isn't it? That's probably what I would have said. You said that for one of two reasons:

1. You've never watched Firefly.
2. You've watched Firefly and you just don't get it yet.

The second is more excusable than the first. If you've never watched Firefly, I highly suggest going to do that right now. It's 14 episodes (one season) and a feature length film. It's a great show that was unfortunately cancelled after one season.

"So what the hell Chris? You're sounding like a lame fan boy."

Yes, yes I am. And I loved the show but I love the analogy much more. So let me explain the background on Malcolm Reynolds a bit before I dive into the relevancy to this site and electrical engineering.

Malcolm Reynolds, played by Nathan Fillion

Mal was the captain and owner of the Firefly (a spaceship). Prior to that, he participated in a war between the Alliance and the Browncoats, on the losing side. After the war (and where the show picks up), he is working with a small crew, floating through space and picking up jobs wherever they can. They aren't always glamorous jobs but they often require ingenuity. Often times, they are avoiding the Alliance, which is a federation of the populated planets. They control just about everything in the galaxy and have very advanced technology. They seek to bring everything under their control.

Starting to see my point? I believe that engineers of the future (and already starting today), have only a couple options:

1. Be part of the ever growing "Alliance" -- In this case, the corporations (companies >200 people) that have an increasing share of the technological population.
2. Be part of a smaller company (20-200 people). However, I believe that over time these smaller companies will continue to disappear (in the electronics world) because of the difficulty of competing on cost. They will either go out of business, see costs increase to the point of employees leaving (healthcare premiums, anyone?) or will get swallowed up by bigger companies.
3. Work alone or in very small teams. Work on jobs for smaller companies in a contract situation. This would be where the future engineer is very similar to Malcolm Reynolds.

The corporations mentioned in the first point are large for many reasons, not all bad. One of the most striking is economies of scale; places like a semiconductor fabrication facility simply cannot operate with small budgets. They need capital equipment which is produced at great cost and the company is necessarily big in order to recoup the initial costs. Another is working with very advanced technologies. If you happen to be an engineer that is working with circuits that operate at 10's to 100's of GHz, you likely require very advanced equipment in order to monitor and modify your circuits. Only the largest companies will be able to afford the bleeding edge technology required to develop future technologies (i.e. If you're working on 20 GHz signals, you need a scope that can detect 40 GHz or more in order to see higher order effects). While in Firefly the Alliance wasn't necessarily big because of these reasons, they were very advanced technologically and were the only places that offered opportunities to work on the bleeding edge.

Now before I take this analogy too far, let me speak to the "stealing" side of Firefly. I think that's really where it begins to fall apart. Hopefully none of the engineers of the future are taking from the large corporations that represent the Alliance (except maybe the contracts they win). Stealing isn't right and in the show is usually because of necessity; I would never encourage any engineer to be anything but outstandingly ethical. However, there are situations in the show where the crew of the Firefly work indirectly for the Alliance in hard times, which I think is reasonable. In engineering terms, I imagine a small design firm of the future working on fixtures for a large factory that needs to outsource some work. Or working in conjunction on a project because the small team is a preferred vendor for a particular part of a product (the embedded system in a robot, for example) and the large corporation provides "the rest" (the remainder of the robot and the expensive moving parts, to continue the robot example). These are all plausible situations in the future and even happening today.

To compare engineers and engineering firms of the future to the Firefly crew paints kind of a bleak future (if the analogy is to be believed). It will be hard to find work because much of it will be dominated by larger companies. And why wouldn't it? The corporations offer more manpower, lower costs and the potential to create larger things. However, all is not lost. Smaller engineering groups can offer many things which also have parallels in the Firefly universe. These are lessons which can be used today and are a reason I liked the analogy so much. Let's go over how and why a smaller engineering crew might succeed.

1. The ability to take jobs that larger companies cannot or will not.
   • Large companies may not want to take on jobs that are small and do not provide a likely return on investment (ROI). However, a smaller company may be willing to gamble on these sorts of things. Historically, the smaller ideas have larger risks but much larger rewards, which could be beneficial for a smaller company willing to take on some risk. An example might be a new product idea brought to a smaller engineering company that is radically different or not fully funded. By going into a joint venture and partially funding the project (assuming they believe in it), they could see large payoff. The lesson here is to investigate opportunities, but be willing to take risks that larger companies will not.
   • In the show, this often meant working with unsavory or misunderstood people in society.
2. Agility in all aspects. Smaller companies are more likely to be able to adapt to situations.
   • This could mean picking up a new piece of software quicker, responding to a customer's changing needs quicker, not being bogged down with corporate bureaucracy, being able to fly under the radar of larger competitors, really anything that means you have the advantage as the little guy.  The lesson here is to maintain that agility (even if you begin to grow as an organization) in order to succeed.
   • In the show, they had lots of tricks up their sleeves to maneuver around the Alliance, often outrunning them or tricking them when in a tough spot.
3. Your jobs will be almost entirely referrals.
   • Almost all work is found through connections, either by word of mouth recommendations or prior experience with a customer. It's important to remember that your reputation as an engineer can lead to future success, so to maintain that like you would any other skill. New work will also be an active social task, either asking current connections who needs help or asking for recommendations. And yes, social media can count as a social activity to find new work, though I would not count on it as the only method of finding work today.
   • In the show, the reputation of the crew got them jobs and respect while continually mobile and moving from planet to planet. They also had to take a few not-so-fun jobs.
4. Trust the people on your team. And make sure you like them.
   • If you're working in a small team, the likelihood that you spend more time with them than your family is pretty high. It's a reality that smaller businesses don't have structured hours. That's because much like the Firefly crew, finding work and getting the job done is all you can do to survive. It's not until you are successful that you can be choosy about which jobs to take and which you don't. And in the mean time, the job at hand will be very time consuming; so choose your team wisely.
   • In the show the crew was basically like a family and their isolation from others while in space was pretty drastic.
5. The focus is on completing the job, not necessarily perfection on all fronts.
   • This is exemplified by the scrappy nature of Malcolm Reynolds and his crew and is a necessity for small engineering businesses. When resources and money are tight, the main design constraint is getting the job done. This often means going with proven solutions--so you might start with a reference design or development board instead of trying to start from scratch. This means favoring simplicity and elegance in design solutions over complexity, regardless of how "cool" the complex solution might be. The emphasis on completion can help you plot the fastest course to get to the end of the design, and then focus your energy on removing the obstacles that are guaranteed to pop up (boards are late, can't get parts, etc).
   • In the show they did what they had to and often improvised in order to get the job done. Also since it was a show luck seemed to favor them a few times...

So there you have it: how I view the future of engineering, especially for those not choosing to work for corporations. Both have their benefits and drawbacks, but I believe the choice between the two will continue to be much more polarized. Those choosing the later and striking out on their own may have hardships along the way, but will be rewarded with the freedom to do what they choose and when they want to do it (with the ultimate restriction being putting food on the table).

I'm sure I could compare engineering to a lot of things, but this one seemed to fit. Did I miss any aspects of being a small engineering business? What do you think?

I've started reading resumes from the bottom up.

What does this mean? It means I'm looking for passion. It means I'm looking for interest. It means I look for people who do electronics for fun. It means that classroom experience--while important--is not getting you the job. In fact, quite the opposite. If you're spending all of your time in the classroom, how useful are you? Yes, understanding the basics are important. But if you're going to quote me an equation you learned instead of going out and soldering and desoldering components to a board, how will I know that you're a legit worker that is willing to get their hands dirty? (solder-y?)

Thanks to the global economy, no job is secure anymore. OK, we can handle that. But in an increasingly independent work force, we'll see more contract work and less (yes, even less than current levels) loyalty to corporations. As such, the recruiting (and hopeful retention) of talent will become one of the most important jobs. Innovation will now be negotiated for and fought for instead of attempting to induce it in a laboratory setting. The risk takers will be encouraged to continue to take risks once they are plucked from their garages and basements.

I believe hackerspaces will be the new recruiting grounds. We've already seen people that are targeting them for sales (chips, discretes, software) because the projects that are made often are spectacular advertisement; the open source hardware people develop in these collaborative workspaces often become platforms to seed many other projects as well. In the future, we'll also see recruiters hanging around hackerspaces looking to pluck talent before the person realizes they're not just working on an Arduino for fun, they also have a future as an embedded system. You just wait, it'll happen. For at least one person interviewing potential candidates, it already is.

I really don't have much to say in response to my last post about where all the electrical engineer sites are online other than: message boards. I alluded to the idea of message boards when I mentioned EEVBlog, though unknowningly at the time; I thought EEVblog was only videos. Working with Dave on The Amp Hour has shown me that a message board can really help hash out ideas (if you're one of the content generators), get suggestions, or get questions answered (if you're watching or reading and don't understand something).  So I started hunting and found some other quite active electronics-only forums:

• All About Circuits Forum -- The main site is a great online open-source textbook that explains lots of electronics concepts.
• Electro-Tech-Online -- This is an intense amount of posts, namely about electronics.
• Eng-Tips -- This is actually a site for all types of engineering but the link is for the electronics part of the site.
• EEVBlog Forum -- Like I mentioned above, this is Dave's forum and it has some great chatter going on it.

Then there are the hacker/maker/DIYer type forums. These often span multiple disciplines and include questions from people who may have never seen a resistor before but you can usually find some good answers (or answer some questions yourself if you are so inclined).

• Instructables Community - Not limited to electronics but there are enough electronics projects that there are forums about it.
• MAKE forums -- Hard to find a bigger group of DIYers than MAKE and you know they're bound to have questions for one another (or you!).
• Hacked Gadget Forum -- Alan's site is usually a great aggregation of new, fun hacks that are popping up on the web; but the forums are a good place to ask about them!

Vendors often get in on the action as well. Why not? You buy the parts or kits there, you should be able to ask questions to others you KNOW are using the same things, right?

• Adafruit Forum -- Great way to ask about their popular kits. I'm disappointed they don't sell the RF jammers that LadyAda designed though.
• Sparkfun -- The biggest hobbyist kit manufacturer out there, with over $12 million in revenue per year. With those kinds of numbers, you know people are hanging out at their site (even when they're NOT giving away $100 of free stuff in a day). More people = more questions = more answers for you.
• Parallax Forums -- A kit maker that utilizes the BASIC Stamp chipset. When you can't ask the Arduino heads about your issues, you're going to need a forum to talk to.
• Element 14 -- They are a sub-company of Farnell, one of the largest distributors of components in the world. There's extra useful content now that they own EAGLE (the CAD program)...but you can find some good general answers there as well.

There are also more specific types of forums out there, which makes a lot of sense. You wouldn't care about working on precision op amps if you have a question about how to get an Arduino to control a relay.

• DIY Drones -- Want to know how to make a quadcopter? I bet this is a good place to ask about it.
• AVR Freaks -- Talking about AVR (the chipset in the Arduino) can get very specific. These members will help you with your specific questions.
• Society of Robots -- All things robotics, including the electronics needed for them.
• DIY Audio Forums -- High end audio electronics, built by you. Talk to others on the board to figure out if the sound is "warm" enough.

The thing is, even though I like the tailored nature of a message board (ask a question, get an answer), I've never really thought of them as a place for electronics people to congregate online. I was quite wrong though. The message board system is democratic in nature because those with the most involvement and the best answers will rise to the top as experts (though I like the StackOverflow/Chiphacker style for this better). Aside from the democratic nature, there can be contrasting voices in case there is a wrong equation or a better way to execute a design; this is important for checking engineering ego and ensuring a design will work properly. I think most of all though, it's easy: easy for the website creator to set up and easy for people to understand how they work. All of these factors point to a pooling of collective electronic resources online.

So if you've never tried it out, give a message board a shot! You can find some great information, connect with some really smart people and maybe help one or two others as well. And if you find any not mentioned here, let us know in the comments.