Work as a freelance FPGA engineer
abp...@my-deja.com
matters) and I'm considering different options for my professional
career. I wonder if becoming an FPGA/VHDL freelance engineer would be a
good alternative to more classical jobs. I would appreciate any advice
you could give me.
Do you know if there is any web site where engineers can meet companies
looking for freelance designers?
Thanks for your time
AB
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
nullandvoid
wrote:
"freelance" engineers, which i call contractors, typically start
off as traditional employees. traditional in the sense that they
work for one company for a salary and benefits. they'll work in
this manner for maybe 5 or more years, honing their skills and
learning as much as they can about their industry. after they
have learned many tricks of the trade and are able to solve
problems quickly, work independently, etc..., they may make the
move to the freelance world.
that being said, managers may hesitate to hire you as a
contractor right out of school. the fact that you only have
academic experience and no industry experience may cause risks
for a project. contractors are usually very well paid because
they can solve problems quickly due to experience. also,
contractors usually don't require any additional training (tools,
languages, etc...) and the jobs you're looking for may require a
different tool set than what you're familiar with at school.
but to keep from totally raining on your parade, here are a few
web sites to look at:
www.asicsearch.com -- just what you're looking for; job postings,
company info, etc...
www.monster.com -- always put your resume there if you're looking
for an ASIC job. lots of employers/headhunters use it.
your.university.career.office.edu -- most engineering schools
have one and know the people that can hire someone with your
skills.
i hope this helps! be sure to post back after you get a job to
let us know how you fared! 8)
All the best,
NaV
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Joel Kolstad
news:059c3f10...@usw-ex0104-033.remarq.com...
> "freelance" engineers, which i call contractors
I call people who are reasonably decent but who are going to need to sit
down -- on company time -- and learn a few of the finer points of whatever
problem it is they're solving "contractors." I can people who are experts
in their fields and have already "been there, done that, can do it again"
consultants. Of course the semantics is arbitrary, but I think it's an
important distinction. True consultants should cost more money and get the
job done faster, and probably not be quite so interested in long-term jobs
as contractors. But unfortunately, regardless of what they're calling
themselves, there are a lot of not-so-good would-be contractors/consultants
as well. I'm not very good at it yet, but I've learned that it's incredibly
important to try to figure out how useful people are in that short "couple
hour" interview.
For the guy who's graduating: If I (well, the company I work for) were
hiring you, and I was looking over your resume, I would most definitely be
looking for "real world" experience. The stuff we do at work is (despite
what the marketing department might have you believe) nowhere near rocket
science, and being able to get projects done in a timely matter is crucial.
Having published a bunch of papers is nice, but having a bunch of reasonably
challenging, real designs is a lot more impressive. (And if you list a VHDL
vending machine on your resume, I wouldn't get your hopes up...) I also ask
to look at HDL code samples (how inspired is the code? do they do silly
things like use cascading if...elsifs... thereby building a priority encoder
when they really should be use case statements and building muxes?), and try
to get the interviewee to draw up at a block diagram or gate level how they
might implement various circuits.
Of course, it's questionable just how qualified I am to do any of this. :-)
I actually just barely consider myself a Real Engineer -- most days it's
more like High Level Technician. (Unfortuntaely, "engineer" is one of those
terms that's close to meaningless these days as well. I recently convinced
my manager to let me drop that word from my business cards.)
Personally, if I had my druthers, I'd take some of the really good guys we
have down in manufacturing who have a lot more common sense than the average
bear and send them to some year long crash course in digital logic design if
I could.
Sorry if I sound too much like Holden Caulfield here. I'm crazy; I swear to
God I am. :-)
---Joel Kolstad