Interview of an Engineer
(Guest Speaker)
The Pre-Engineering students at
1.
What type of engineer are you? What background do you need? |
I am a Software Engineer.
Software Engineers have backgrounds in Computer Science, Computer
Engineering or Electrical Engineering. |
2.
What is the latest technology in your field? |
As of November 2006, I would say the latest technology has
to do with the migration from legacy 32-bit applications and operating
systems to the new 64-bit environments (Windows Vista, Solaris 10, and
various 64-bit Linuxes). |
3.
When did you decide to be an engineer? Why did you
become an engineer? How many years have you been working in the field? |
When I was a freshman in college, I was interested in a
mixed Liberal Arts/Engineering program offered at |
4.
How many hours per week do you really work? Include all work related hours. |
Over the course of a year I think it averages out to a
normal 40 hour work week. Being
self-employed, I have the luxury to choose when to work billable hours (those
I get paid for) and when I get to do fun stuff like visiting schools to
promote Engineering as a career choice. |
5.
How much do you get paid? Average over a year. You may choose not to answer this one. |
I get paid by the hour for every hour worked. So if I work
a lot of hours in a year, I make a lot more money than if I take a lot of
time off. My hourly rate is somewhat
controlled by the market – when jobs became scarce in 2001, I had to take a
30% pay cut to stay competitive. Since
then I have gradually increased the rates as the job market has improved. I
fall in the “upper middle class” designation – but not high enough to be
subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax according to the IRS. |
6.
What company do you work for? |
I have my own consulting firm called Critical Software
Systems – the name comes from the idea of Software Engineering for
Mission-Critical Systems. I provide my services to client companies in the
aerospace and defense industries. Most of the software I write is for “embedded”
systems – microprocessors and microcontrollers that don’t have typical user
interface software like a Windows or Linux application. |
7.
What is your working environment like? |
I have a home office that I enjoy working from; I also
work quite a bit at my client’s sites.
That varies from scrounging a desk in a lab, to cubicles, to an actual
office. Mostly embedded software
development is done in a lab environment, as there’s specialized test
equipment necessary. |
8.
What previous projects have you worked on? What is your favorite / most interesting so
far? |
I have worked on a wide variety of systems, both
government and commercial. Working in
the aerospace industry is always exciting because the risks of failure are
always prevalent and this increases the engineering challenge. However I think my all-time favorite was
writing software for a DirecTV set-top box ... when my software worked, I got
to watch TV! |
9.
What programs do you use to complete your job? |
Typically a microprocessor or microcontroller will have a
dedicated software development environment (compiler, assembler, linker). I like to
use MS Visual Studio to manage C and C++ source code, even if I won’t ever
build it as a Windows application. Tools like Excel and Matlab
are also invaluable for analysis. |
10. What
other job(s) could you qualify for?
Both engineering and other. |
One of the advantages about working in such a broad range
of application areas is I get to a certain level of expertise in those
areas. So I think I could be an anyalyst in intelligence processing systems. I also like
teaching and coaching so maybe a job as a trainer would be good. |
11. Do
you like your job? What is the best
thing that’s happened in your career / best personal accomplishment so far? |
Being self-employed is the most satisfying part of my
career. Not only does it allow me to
work exactly the way I want from a technical perspective, it also allows me
to make decisions about how I balance my personal and business life. |
12. What
did you do before this job? |
Before I started my consulting practice, I worked a number
of software development (programming) and engineering jobs. I was fortunate to get into computers in my
first job out of school, even though I didn’t have a computer-oriented degree.
Getting the Masters’ degree in Computer Science really helped me move into
the more challenging engineering jobs too. |
13. What
classes did you take in high school?
What classes did you take in college? |
What’s ironic is that I was an A/B student in high school with the exception of what was then called “Computer Math” – a programming course. It was the only course I ever flunked! Mostly I was more focused towards literature, writing – the kinds of things Liberal Arts majors are known for. I did take AP Math (calculus) as a HS senior though I didn’t pass the AP test. As an undergraduate I took a mix of Engineering, Math and
Liberal Arts classes. A lot of the Engineering and Math classes ended up
being elective credits. |
14. What
did you focus on in college? |
My focus was Economics, which out of the Social Sciences
is perhaps the most mathematically rigorous. I enjoyed seeing how what I
learned in Math class could apply to real-world problems. At that time, we just saw the computer as a
tool to do math – nothing like as pervasive in society as it is now. |
15. Which
ones helped you the most in college? |
Definitely the emphasis on science and math; but the
flip-side of that is that the Liberal Arts tends to
favor exploratory thinking. Most
engineering problems have an aspect that requires innovation and ingenuity –
“thinking outside the box” as the cliché goes. The successful engineer will
have a mix of both in-the-box and outside-the-box skills. |
16. What
college(s) did you go to? What college(s) did you graduate from? How long were you in college? Include all, full time and part time work. |
I spent four years at |
17. What
degrees do you have? What is your
level of education? |
BS Economics, MS Computer Science. |
18. What
subject was your favorite in college? |
I liked the theoretical courses in Economics best,
especially those that were mathematically-based. I despised classes from the |
19. What
was your high school and college GPA? |
A’s and B’s in High School; 3.14 undergraduate; 3.23
graduate (out of 4.0). |
20. What
are the job benefits (both health care & personal)? How much vacation do you get? |
Since I am self-employed, I have to pay for all my job
benefits myself. However, I do have
some leeway in this area – for example, my automobile is entirely owned by my
consulting company so it’s like a tax-free benefit to me for business
purposes. If I take a vacation it means I am not working for a client, so I
get paid nothing during those times.
It’s up to me to decide the balance between paying and non-paying
hours. |
21. Who
did/do you look up to? |
When I was younger I’d always size people up – “is this
person smarter than me or not?” The people that knew more than me, or had
done more than me, were those that I looked up to. I figured I could always do better and
learn more, to become more like them.
It just takes time! |
22. What
was your motivation for becoming an engineer? |
I had a roommate in college who was a whiz on
computers. This was just at the dawn
of the desktop computer age, and I realized that’s where I could make a good
living if I could get into it. Frankly
it pays much better than being an Economist, statistician or some of the
other jobs for which my degree might have qualified me. |
23. What
other types of engineering have you considered? |
When I was in graduate school at GMU I was interested in
getting into the hardcore physics, like particle accelerators or high-energy
microwave devices or something. |
24. Where
do you live? One or two homes? |
I live in |
25. What
cars do you own? i.e. sports, etc…. What kind do you
want? |
My business car is a Mazda RX-8 which is a four-seat
sports car. I also have a full-size Dodge conversion van for hauling my
family and sports equipment. If I
could find (or design) one vehicle that was sporty but still had enough room
to camp in, I’d be set. |
26. What
do you do outside of work? |
In the summer I train for and compete in triathlon – the “swim, bike, run” sport. In the fall and winter I do a lot of trail running. I have three kids, ages 11, 14 and 15 and I like to spend
time doing family stuff with them. |
27. Do
you work weekends? What do you do in your spare time? |
Sometimes it’s necessary to work weekends but I normally
reserve that for family time. My
daughter goes to boarding school so the only chance we have to be together is
on weekends. We like outdoors
activities but also are all great shoppers – just about every weekend has a
trip to Best Buy. |
28. What
video games, if any, do you play? |
I’m terrible at all video games though I enjoy watching my
sons play. They have Xbox, GC, DS and
PS/2. Video games are a fascinating
example of software simulation and someday I might like to be involved in
game software development. In terms of
user interaction they are miles ahead of the Windows or command-line paradigms;
technical software could benefit greatly by employing some of the techniques
that video games use. The hardware in the PS/3 is phenomenal. |
29. What
sports did/do you play? Can you
complete an engineering degree and play college sports? Who is your favorite athlete? |
I never did sports as a student, and now I do
individual-oriented sports vs. team sports.
However, I do believe that if you have an interest in sports you
should try and participate in it – it will help you maintain that “whole
person” balance in your life. I like
the sport of cycling, so Lance Armstrong is one of my favorite athletes. |
30. Are
you married? Do you have time to spend
with your family? How many times a
year do you go on vacation? |
Right now I am separated from my wife – not due to
anything related to my career. I have
known marriages that are put under a lot of pressure by how much time one
spouse – the engineer – has to spend at work.
I was fortunate enough to never have to make that sacrifice. Usually my kids and I take one summer
vacation together but with the separation this year we didn’t get the
chance. I hope to continue that
tradition even after I’m divorced. |
31. What
do you do? What is the most
challenging aspect of your field? |
Even if you get good at writing software for a particular
platform, that platform eventually becomes obsolete. So there is a constant challenge to apply
what you know to new, evolving software development environments. You have to balance off becoming really
proficient in one platform – and risking becoming obsolete yourself – versus
becoming only somewhat proficient on a lot of different technologies. |
32. What
skills do you need? What are essential
subjects for success in your field? |
Software is fundamentally based on formal logic, so you
need to be able to reason things out logically. The process of designing and developing
software is essentially “seeing real-world relationships in terms of large
sets of simple statements whose truth value can be ascertained.” |
33. Were
you interested in engineering in high school?
What did you want to be in high school? |
My Dad is a college professor in a scientific discipline
so I always had that influence.
However, the Senior edition of my high school newspaper predicted I
would “lead a gang of motorcycle-riding English professors.” |
34. What
are the practical applications of your field?
|
Virtually unlimited, I think. As our society embraces digital processing
in more and more of our daily lives, we will have an ever-growing demand for
digital and software engineers. Our
economic health and national security already depend on engineers to a huge
degree. |
35. Is
there anything that you or your firm have engineered that we use today? |
I went for a long period working on projects that
eventually got cancelled. You can
imagine how frustrating that was! The
first big success I had that ended that dismal period was the launch of
Galaxy-12 which is a satellite in the PanAmSat
fleet. When you watch channels like
HBO on cable, most likely that signal is coming from HBO to your cable
provider by way of Galaxy-12. |
36. How
long did it take for you to achieve the position you are in now? |
I didn’t feel comfortable striking out on my own as an
independent consultant until I had some serious technical credentials under
my belt – about eight years out of college.
I also had a business partner at the time too, so we kind of shared
the risk of going it alone. |
37. What
is the greatest failure you have sustained?
|
At one point in my consulting career I decided to make a
change of clients. I found out later
that the project I had been working on got cancelled. I still wonder if I had
stuck with it, if it would have been a success? Was
my leaving the cause of the failure, or was it doomed no matter what I could
have done? It can sometimes make you
uncomfortable to think that your own actions can have such a broad-reaching
effect. |
38. How
do you think engineering will continue to evolve? |
Students like yourselves will face ever greater challenges
in learning everything you’ll need to know to solve the next generation of
engineering problems. Hopefully the
tools at your disposal will continue to get better and better though. I think computers still have a huge amount
of development before they reach the kind of potential that will help us
break through some engineering barriers.
I mean, who needs a digital toaster? How about focusing the
engineering talent on more intractable problems, like how to assemble
powerful observatories in space robotically? |
39. What
influence has religion had on engineering? |
Interesting that you should ask me this, as it’s one of my
favorite extracurricular areas of interest.
It’s a question of very broad scope, but as a quick answer I’d say
that up until the time of |
40. How
are (all) engineering fields alike / different? |
All engineers are faced with the same basic constraints –
you have to solve a problem given the current understanding we have about the
universe (e.g. physics), and you are given a finite amount of time and money
to solve that problem. One of the
things that distinguishes Software engineering from
other disciplines is that we don’t currently have a good quantitative model
of the limits of how “smart” our software can be. Will we ever create a machine consciousness
that rivals human intelligence? We don’t know yet. |
41. How
do you define engineering? |
Basically the same answer as the previous question –
solving problems using our best understanding of the physics of nature, but
given finite resources. A simpler answer would be “using technology to try to
make the world a better place.” |
42. If
you weren’t an engineer, what would you do? |
I would love to explore and publish my philosophy on the limits
of scientific thought – trying to answer how smart our computers might
eventually become. |
43. What
are some drawbacks as well as benefits of being an engineer? |
Despite the fact that our society increasingly depends on
technology for growth and well-being, the engineering career isn’t widely
recognized for the contributions we make.
Doctors, lawyers and politicians are still held in higher regard than
engineers, but it is arguable that our contribution to society is at least as
important as theirs. Consequently, we
do not carry the same power to effect positive social change as those
professions do. |
44. What
do you think will be |
|
45. What
extracurricular did you do in high school?
College? |
Very little in high school, I mostly worked menial jobs
(though that does help develop social skills). In college I wrote for the campus newspaper
and was involved in a group that organized open-mike performance opportunities. |
46. How
hard is it to find a job in your field? |
There are ebbs and flows to every industry, but right now
the demand for software engineers is strong. Despite all the progress that
has been made in better tools, software is still largely written “by hand”
which is a very costly and labor-intensive process. Automating software development is a long
way off, so we still need lots of capable programmers. |
47. How
many projects do you complete each year? |
Some projects go on for many years. However, to make them manageable –
specifically so you know if you’re making progress – they are typically
broken into smaller milestones.
Software deliveries may be a few months or even weeks apart; each
delivery is intended to provide more working capability than the one before.
So it’s rare that a software engineer will start from scratch and have a
finished product – if the software is good, it will live on and continue to
be maintained; if it’s no good it will be dropped and forgotten. |
48. Why
are you here? |
As I mentioned earlier, I believe that for |
49. If you were a student listening to a guest speaker, what would you ask? Answer it. |
Q: Will people think of me as a geek if I become an engineer? A: Maybe, but just remember what I said in class about the
“whole person” idea. Live your life
the way YOU want to and you’re much more likely to find happiness. And yes, engineers do eventually get dates
and fall in love. |