To those who think they "Made It" in Engeneering: What was your path? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: tmadness
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 06:36:12 pm
content: So you think you have #Made-ItTM. You have reached the upper echelons ofnot only technical capability, but you bring in bank, serious bank, putting you in the same class as the "I make money from thin air" crowd (investment bankers, real estate ppl, people who bought bitcoin in 2010, drug dealers etc).I have a few question for you:1. Is your job really engineering based, i.e did you really do engineering work? if yes,2. What was your path to success? were you an engineer through in and through out? did you get into management?3. What is it that you do specifically?4. Do you think your path is reproducible? if yes, what do you believe were the "right" moves that got you to where you are?

author: sandalcandal
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 09:11:34 pm
content: I wonder if EE legends like Jim William, Bob Pease and Bob Widlar actually even ever "made bank". The love and passion for their art seemed to be their overwhelming drive.Certainly the only thing I see discussed is their engineering contributions and not their "bank accounts".I know of at least one engineer that "made it" quite well financially by being early stage in a start-up that was acquired.

author: mawyatt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 10:23:23 pm
content: First off I think those that "made it" knew what they wanted to do at a very early age, they were gifted with a talent for engineering. Widler certainly made it both technically and $ wise, he had stock options at National for 1$ per share!! Rumors I recall indicated his salary was greater than the National president, he knew he was the best analog IC designer and demanded payment for such. A colleague told me that they hired Widlar for a few days and he charged well over $2K/day which included travel time, and this was back in late 60s or early 70s!!Back in 2008 when we were developing a new type mixer called the PolyPhase Mixer (also called N Path or Mixer First) a PhD grad student at Cornell was working with her advisor professor and later with us on such. She was brilliant, her dad was a Linear Technology IC designer, and she said she grew up with an electronics lab in the basement. After getting her PhD from Cornell she became part of a startup called Passiff, which was acquired by Apple a year later. She became a multi-millionaire well before 30!! Last time I saw her at the IEEE ISSCC a number of years ago, she had left Apple saying they were too confining, and formed another startup! Another from Cornell getting his PhD with the same advisor, got a invitation to interview with Apple after he published his IEEE Best Paper on a new type image sensor that measures the light amplitude and direction (allows post processing focusing). Rumor is Apple gave him, yes gave him no strings attached, 200 shares of stock if he would interview, he could keep the stock if he declined, and of course would get more if he accepted, he accepted!! BTW the Apple stock was $694 per share then!!!I personally know another engineer that worked on an important project that would get full company paid salary for 6 months off after working a couple years on the project.The common thing about all these engineers is they were brilliant in their field, very creative, knew it, and demanded compensationEvery superb engineer/scientist I've known knew exactly what they wanted to do at a very early age and pursued such with few sidetracks!!So if you fall into this type classification, want to stay technical, don't let management short change youI'm retired for a few years now, but one thing I learned later in my career that I wish I had learned much earlier, is "Human Resources" isNOTyour friendThey are there for one reason to serve the company and not you, they want to keep your salary and benefits at a minimum, so establish what you want and stand your ground. If you are really good at what you do and they really want your skills, HR will bend in your directionBest,

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 10:39:24 pm
content: We see such posts regularly. One thing in common, none of those mentioned ever posted here or anywhere asking how to do it.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 11:50:43 pm
content: If you assume you have - ahem - "made it", then the likelihood is high that you haven't, but your ego can't wait to crow.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 12:06:49 am
content: Quote from: jpanhalt on June 23, 2021, 10:39:24 pm"If you have to ask, you'll never know"I think that asking for career advice can be helpful, as long as the asker recognizes that everyone is different, you can never step in the same river twice, and chaos reigns supreme. I think I "made it" in an engineering career, but I wouldn't for one moment suggest that anyone attempt to duplicate my path. I had an aptitude, barely finished high school and only took a few random college courses, and was able to retire in my 40's *extremely* comfortably, with a track record of products and friends that I am very proud of. Here are a few random observations I made along the way:Have an aptitude for it. Learn everything you can.Figure out how to find something new or interesting in even the mundane tasks in front of you (there will be a lot of those).Don't be afraid to try something new. Volunteer for the tough jobs. Stretch yourself. Don't be afraid to fail.Don't get good at stuff you hate.Don't burn bridges unnecessarily, but do move on when a better opportunity presents itself. While you're somewhere do the best you can. A job is not "'till death do us part".Help others. It's the right thing to do, and it rewards you down the road with recommendations and opportunities.Take risks. People seldom get rich selling themselves by the hour, you need leverage for that. Stock, options, ownership are powerful forms of leverage.Timing is important, but you probably won't recognize this when it's happening. Hindsight is easy, but pretty useless.Be lucky. To some extent you can make your own luck (or at least not destroy what luck does come your way), but there will be plenty of people smarter than you who worked harder, and still didn't "make it".I could go on, but already these platitudes aren't really useful. Here's a final distillation: Be good, be bold, be lucky, don't be an asshole.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 12:07:44 am
content: I can quite safely and confidently assure you, it does not.The maximum value of any real labor is in the realm of $500k/yr for, like, expert surgeons. Nothing a lowly EE or SE will approach.Pretty much any earnings beyond that, are due to the owning or management of capital.Tim

author: mawyatt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 01:49:58 am
content: Tim,Senior expert IC designers are generally valued above $500K/yr, if they are directly associated with a fab even more. This is justified because of the expertise required, complexity and cost of developing chips today, including the CAD tool costs (think Synoposis and Cadence). Most fabs will "leverage" the few senior IC designers available with more junior folks in a mentoring fashion which hides the valued cost of the senior expert and averages to a lower rate. Try and "book" a senior expert IC designer for a year full time on your project development if the fab will even talk to you, if they do talk you better have deep pockets!! Our course if you are even thinking about a leading edge chip development today where these senior IC designers reside, you'll need seriously deep pockets anyway!!Best,

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 03:05:29 am
content: I don't see anything paying a fraction of that, at least not that's listed publicly. Anyway, I did say "lowly EE", and that's still nothing out of the ballpark.Tim

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 06:54:55 am
content: Engineering is the wrong place to look for striking it rich.Yes some of these rockstar engineers are capable of making some serious big bucks, even those only make big bucks if they fight for it. The company is unlikely to give them some huge paycheck if they don't put there foot down and threaten them with leaving unless they pay up. In some cases the threat even ends up executed because the out of touch management has no idea how critical some employee is and refuse to pay up. Then after the person leaves find out that the companies core business and source of profit is breaking down because the person they threw out turned out to be so very important. The ex-employee then typically quickly lands a new better paying job (because of those very skills that made them so valuable at this job). But to become such a critical employee to be able to justify a paycheck that is a few times higher than everyone else there you need to be at the right place at the right time. Not all engineers are interested in the business side of things and not all have the drive to extract the most money out of there position. The best engineers typically come out of the lifelong passion for engineering, they are so good at it because they focus so much on it that they have little time to focus on how to become rich and similar stuff.Still engineering jobs pay better than a lot of other jobs, this is purely for the reason that people with appropriate skills and experience are more rare while also carrying a lot of difficult to transfer important knowledge for how to make the companies products. Other low skill jobs pay like crap just because they can fire anyone on the spot and get a replacement the next day. So engineering does give some extra job security and pays well enough to comfortably live from without getting nervous every time you look at your bank balance. But you are certainly not going to be buying a shiny new Ferrari with the paychecks.

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 11:18:28 am
content: Quote from: tmadness on June 23, 2021, 06:36:12 pmSorry but I never attained the skills needed to make money from thin air but I was curious how much drug dealers make.https://www.vice.com/en/article/939zga/how-much-money-drug-dealers-makeFrom 2014:https://www.salon.com/2014/03/09/the_true_lives_of_low_level_drug_dealers_whats_the_point_of_surviving_if_you_cant_live/I would imagine you would want to be located in an area where the cost of living may play into it in order to have easy access.Curious OP, how much you make in your area dealing?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 02:09:35 pm
content: Quote from: sandalcandal on June 23, 2021, 09:11:34 pmI agree. One of my mentors once told me that EE is probably the worst job (requiring a formal education) where it comes to money.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 03:19:47 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on June 24, 2021, 12:07:44 amYes. While (as has been mentioned) there are a few top engineers making more than this as a salary, the vast majority of good engineers will make much less.You usually need ownership to make the big bucks. When it happened for me (in the 1990's) this was in the form of stock and stock options at a start-up. The risk is high, but the potential payoff is big. You generally need to be in management. I helped found our company as Director of Systems Engineering, but we were initially a small team and I also had a significant design responsibility (architecture, ASIC design). But many of the non-management employees also received significant stock options -- after we were acquired there were a couple of technicians driving new Ferraris.This was in 1999. We had a hot product in a hot sector (fiber optics networking), with real customers. I don't think that it would be possible to repeat our story in the current environment.But I started my career in the late 1970's when things were pretty bleak. You never know what's going to happen, so find something you like to do, something that other people value, and get good at it. Be bold. You will probably become comfortable and (mostly) enjoy your job -- not too bad, really. But you might just get lucky.The company I helped start was "Cerent". One of the marketing guys wrote a book about it:https://www.amazon.com/Upstart-Startup-Cerent-Transformed-Cisco/dp/1505303826/It's a bit of an "inside" story -- perhaps you had to be there.

author: TimNJ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 04:13:10 pm
content: For the most part, you have to sell your soul, at least a little, if you want to make bank. If money is your main career driver, then you probably wouldn't even consider this "selling your soul". But, if you are truly passionate about electronics (or engineering in general), I don't know...but I don't think you're going to strike it rich, at least not as your "typical" engineering company. Apple, et. al., maybe different story.You can live very comfortably with salaries >$100K/year, but I think even gray beard EE's are probably not (on average) making too much more than $120-130K/year, and lots of young and middle-age engineers working for $60-90K/year.I feel like company's play off the fact that design engineers generally value ~what~ they do more than ~how much~ they make, and then pay you as little as possible. On the contrary, I have so many friends working in finance/corporate in Manhattan making absolutely stupid money, and I think they make so much because the companies are a.) in the business of using money to make more money, so the culture is already there and b.) they know their employees probably put salary first.Maybe a lot of generalizations, just ramblings of a grumpy 26 year old EE.

author: tmadness
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 04:54:58 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on June 24, 2021, 03:05:29 amWell Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos both have electronics backgrounds. Now, I would not call them Engineers, but they are easily some of the riches people on earth.In a more honest retrospective,Raja KoduriLisa SuPat GelsingerDrew Baglinoetcare all extremely respected for their technical talent and contributions. And these are people just at the top there are probably at least a dozen technical leads below them who are doing quite well for themselves.Holy crap @fourfathom. Damn you were the person I had In mind when I posted my question, $7.2 billion exit for your company, congratulations. I have a few questions for you:how did you decide on Cerent?There are hundreds of new startups each year with compelling products, what do you look for In a startup?On staying on the technical track, it is relatively easy to be a middle manager, how did you have your engineering capabilities and contributions valued at the same level?What advice would you give to your 25 year old self? what about educational attainment?

author: PaulAm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 06:19:07 pm
content: You're more likely to do well if you're in the founding team of a startup (or you're the lead). Of course your chances of failure are much higher than a big payoff. There's quite a bit of luck involved on whether the product you're making gets picked up by the market. (Been in 3 startups, got the T-shirt, not much else)You're unlikely to make a lot of money working for somebody else unless you can develop a rare skillset that is in high demand, and that takes years of experience and a bit (ha!, a lot) of luck in choosing the correct path to a place that doesn't currently exist.If you want to make money working for somebody, go into finance or be management in an insurance firm (the second highest paid CEO in our state was the head of a medical insurance company, he was exceeded only by the CEO of GM)You can do pretty well by identifying a niche, getting really good at it, developing a reputation and a network of contacts and working for yourself. An then be ready to do it all over again when everything changes and your niche is obsoleted. You probably won't be buying a Ferrari though.Save extensively and invest conservatively and you're be a millionaire by the time you're 40 anyway.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 09:08:02 pm
content: This is the type of post I look for, and will read first.As for Bob Widlar historically speaking:My instructor started talking about Bob Widlar and his 'CURRENT SOURCE' innovation, in an analog IC class in engineering course. "What does 'personal' mention have to do with learning analog?" I was thinking. But soon I realized, the instructor was talking about (Widlar's inventiveness and willingness to, yeah, think outside the box).What a great story to weave, in an otherwise sterile classroom setting. Essentially, Widlar reasoned that a 'current source' circuit be placed in a totally different way, as a LOAD ! That way your bigger circuit sees a huge load value, like 15 megohms, something like that. I've come to learn that 'mis-placements' of components from traditional circuit roles is a common aspect, of inventions and other novel research.Taking those ideas, I'd have to say a person like Ron Widlar was a great story, relating to success in careers.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 09:37:59 pm
content: If you're in engineering to make big money then you're in it for the wrong reason and you will probably never achieve that goal. You can make a good living for sure, but you won't get rich. To do that requires a combination of dumb luck being in the right place at the right time and getting in on the ground floor of a new company that takes off big. My partner's grandfather cofounded Data-IO and retired by 40, it was a crapshoot, PROMs could have turned out to be a dead end, or a dozen companies could have produced similar programming devices and the whole thing could have fizzled but they got lucky and it took off. The uncle of a friend of mine was one of I think the first 10 employees at Valve (game company) and he's loaded. I know a couple of guys who were early employees of Microsoft and retired very well off when they were younger than I am now. All of these people got rich mostly because they were lucky. They also happened to be very competent engineers but that isn't what got them rich.Guys like Widlar were brilliant, members of a very small and elite group of people forging new territory. Most of them don't do it for the money though, they probably would have done it for free if there was no money to be had in it. For a lot of engineers it isn't so much a career path as a life calling, I could not imagine doing anything that didn't involve some form of engineering, and I knew that by the time I was a toddler.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 09:48:03 pm
content: Depends what you consider 'made it'. My salary with annual bonus is in the top 10% of incomes now, for the UK. I still can't afford a home in the area I live, I still don't have the best pension fund outlooks, and I don't have fast cars and attractive women chasing me down. But I'm pretty happy with my job, I don't struggle to pay bills and it's nice to be able to put my skills to use in something I enjoy.Pretty much the top end for electronic engineering in the UK is about £100k/year, but you have to be pretty much gold dust to earn that much with an extremely niche but competitive skill set. I think the best a genuine engineer (ie not a manager or CTO or anything like that) can hope to make is around £75k/year. That would be an FPGA engineer or maybe an analog signals engineer, not just a generalist in electronics. It's about £6,250 per month pre-tax. After tax you'd have about £4,000 per month. You can do a lot with that, but you won't be buying 10GHz oscilloscopes every month.But there comes a point when more money isn't worth it -- Because life is for living and money is the lubricant to make your life easier to live, but to work just to earn money is pointless, you cannot take it with you to the grave and the prime years of your life are before you are 40, so enjoy them while you can. I have a friend who was earning £150k/year as a consultant at KPMG, who resigned his position for a pay cut by almost 60%, because he hated his job so much.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 11:03:18 pm
content: Quote from: TimNJ on June 24, 2021, 04:13:10 pmYou can't live comfortably in Silicon Valley on that kind of salary. Maybe a couple of such incomes could get by...https://sf.curbed.com/2018/3/2/17073100/silicon-valley-house-home-sunnyvale-record-price-crisisYou can go to bls.gov and check median incomes by occupation and location. Growth is not favorable for EEs, CS types make more money and the field is growing faster by a LOT.The problem I have with bls.gov is that they seem to comingle electrical engineering (power and such) with electronics engineering.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 11:06:23 pm
content: The money making is in the stock market - especially in 401(k) accounts. Even the Biden presidency has been returning pretty high percentages. Not as high as under Trump (up 40+% and 10,000 points during his presidency) but not bad at all.Make sure you contribute the maximum allowed and hope your employer matches a significant percentage.

author: sandalcandal
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 12:41:37 am
content: Time for some quick fact checking.Quote from: rstofer on June 24, 2021, 11:03:18 pmWell they sort out electronics engineers if you look closer.https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm#tab-5Bay area wages also tend to be much higher than the national average in correlation with the higher cost of living in the area. A quick search reveals plenty of jobs postings with >$150k advertised compensation.Made an account and went through the user tracking crud and got statics on "Electronics Engineer", Bachelors, 10yrs experience, SF, fromhttps://www.payscale.com/(full report attached)Also for SydneyEdit: I have a friend with much less than 10 yrs experience earning more than the A$111k 90% in this statistic, I also have many friends earning less.Edit2: Even a lot of my friends got around A$80k and some even higher at their first positions right after graduating though they were all pretty component "high achievers" with decent work experience before graduating.

author: DEV001
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 01:35:44 am
content: I just watched a brilliant interview with Jim Keller. The interview was focused naturally around his CPU designing skills and some architecture questions but he talks about a lot of interesting topics from books he reads to how he got to where he is now.If you don't want to watch the video, the text version is on their site.https://www.anandtech.com/show/16762/an-anandtech-interview-with-jim-keller-laziest-person-at-teslaThe video has bookmarks if you expand the summary below the video.

author: TimNJ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 03:59:23 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on June 24, 2021, 11:03:18 pmI was talking in generalities, not really talking about the few oddball places around the country. Bay Area is a ridiculous place on so many levels. Yes there are lots of EE jobs in Silicon Valley, but I’m talking about Joe Average at a more normal place in the country. You will almost always be compensated more if you work in Silicon Valley.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 05:36:57 am
content: Thinking over these ideas while reading here, some opposites come to mind. Personally, most of us could use more success. It could be a special class of science, meta-data related: to document any interesting factors, related to successes missed. (Termed a 'near success', lol).Like, for example, a study relating 'gum chewing' to business success (just a silly example).But more to this point maybe a (social / psychology) study examining thoughts and observations a particular engineer / participant had been experiencing, at a break-thru time.AND, since we want / need technical progress, it is a good thing, to examine BOTH dynamics, of failures because we want to improve, and dynamics of success.So, in that vein, I remember Van Gogh, arguably the most successful but simultaneously miserable. Plus you know, the legacy of Van Gogh's work took decadesto grow, separate from his life-span.So, uh, What advice could be given, to a 26 year old Van Gogh, for increasing his success more immediate.Make sense ?

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 08:10:09 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on June 24, 2021, 02:09:35 pmDepends on the country. In Hungary for example, being an EE is one of the best paying jobs, top 10 for the national averages. EE pay more than any other engineering discipline.The trick is, they have to pay good wages, or the candidate will just leave to West Europe and get that wage for themselves.The only way this job will have the wages for the amount of skill we put in, if we collectively stop accepting bad job offers.

author: szszoke
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 09:42:17 am
content: Does software engineering count?

author: Jay_Diddy_B
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 11:34:33 am
content: Hi,I consider that I have done very well in the field of engineering. I don't want to get into specific details for privacy reasons.You can measure how well you are doing, or expect to do, by looking at the salary surveys.Here is a link to one:https://www.ospe.on.ca/public/documents/general/Member_Market_Summary_2018.pdfHere is a section:These are Canadian Dollars, multiply by 0.8 for USD.I am been fortunate to be in the 95+ percentile on the salary scale. I have always been in the technical side, as oppose to the management side of the 'OR' in the chart.My path:1) Interest in electronics from early age.2) World class university education, from a university that ranks in the top ten world-wide. We were taught to solve problems that had not been seen before. Learning current technology will not be much use in the future.3) Specialization in power and analog electronics.4) 25 years as a senior design engineer. Not always easy.5) Staff level engineering position reporting to Silicon Valley without living thereThere was a certain amount of luck. I have a lot of fun and met a lot of great people along the way.Is it reproducible? Why don't you report back in 25 yearsJay_Diddy_B

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 02:14:45 pm
content: I have to say of the engineers I know (and I'm probably biased because it's how I started) but an early interest in engineering has been really key to their success. Those who just went in because it was a good career or they could make money doing it are doing okay, but rarely do they get beyond a middle level. I know a npw-retired CTO who started programming at the age of 10. It's fascinating - I wonder what puts people on this path - biological fluke or having the right parents or some combination of both?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 04:22:23 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on June 25, 2021, 08:10:09 amGood for them. But you leave out the part where the cost of living is likely to be lower in Hungary. Making a lot of money doesn't help if you have to spend most of it on a home and food.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 04:35:37 pm
content: To sum it up, from lowest to highest importance:1. work hard2. be good at it3. have the right connections4. be lucky1 and 2 will bring you a decent income.3 and 4 will bring you big money and/or fame.Overall, the chances to say "Made It!" in engineering are about the same as the chances to say "Jackpot!" in Las Vegas.

author: Gregg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 08:51:23 pm
content: Assuming a person has the talent and motivation to make it; the biggest help along the way is to make and keep connections with like-minded individuals and help each other along the way. Never burn your bridges, make as many amicable connections as possible. You never know, the intern you helped may just recommend you for a better position later on. Always be ready and available to jump ship for a better position; but arrange it so there are little or no hard feelings. Consider every job as a stepping stone toward something better.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 09:01:43 pm
content: I grew up in a poor community with a single Mum. I left school before I got GCSEs. I returned later and got 4 GCSEs, but I hung along while my friends at Uni partied... but I was not at Uni, just enjoying the party scene. I signed up for my degree at 21 with the Open University and started a degree. Convinced I "couldn't do it." I'd been rejected from local lesser courses.My friends said, "give up, get a job in Tescos like everyone else." I lost my girlfriend of 7 years over refusing to give up on that dream and getting a "normal" job.5 years later I had a Bachelor of Science in Computing and a Technology.2 years after that I landed a job at 20K. Double or triple the "normal job" wage.I lost friends along the way through this, but I hung tight to my dreams.... behind schedules, late in the game, but I was determined.Today, I probably earn enough to pay their wages each month.But you never reclaim the friends lost. You can't go back.Today. I'm well embedded in my community of engineers making real world changes for real world people and making an absolute shed ton of money doing it.Those who doubted me, shamed me.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 09:22:28 pm
content: Quote from: tmadness on June 24, 2021, 04:54:58 pmTo be honest, my good fortune was hugely dependent on luck, and far beyond my most optimistic expectations. Looking back, there were choices and inflection points, but we all know the story of how a hurricane might be triggered by the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Africa. I have no way of knowing which, if any, of the decisions I made actually affected the outcome. Cerent could have easily crashed and burned -- we came very close to that on a few occasions.How did I decide on Cerent? My boss and I had already been through one startup (as engineers), which was a modest success and had been acquired a few years previously. We were being treated well but were getting bored with the incremental product support and enhancements, and with the big-company atmosphere. There were other startups spinning off in our "Telecom Valley" area and we were looking for new opportunities. Vinod Khosla (one of the founders of Sun Microsystems and a partner at Kleiner Perkins -- one of the big V.C. firms) had an idea, and was working with some ASIC designers who wanted to start a company. They needed a team with System experience, and contacted my boss. We met with them and kicked some ideas around, ultimately deciding to form the company. I helped recruit more engineers and staff and we took it from there. As it turned out, what we eventually developed was pretty far from Vinod's initial vision. This story is told pretty well in that book I mentioned (https://www.amazon.com/Upstart-Startup-Cerent-Transformed-Cisco/dp/1505303826) .As I mentioned, there were other startups that I might have joined, but the chance to do something fresh on our own terms (as much as that is possible) sounded like way more fun. I didn't realize how far and fast our area of the network would be exploding, but there were indications that the time was ripe. We had the enthusiastic backing of a major VC, and I felt that if Cerent (initially "Fiberlane") failed, I would have plenty of opportunities to continue my career growth.What would I look for in a startup? I don't really know, and have made a few (in retrospect) poor choices when investing or assisting in new startups after I retired. But it depends on your goals and tolerance for risk. For a big payday you want very early stage companies with smart people, solid financial backing, and a product plan that makes sense for an emerging market. But a relatively green engineer will have a hard time getting hired at the earliest stage -- they need experts and people who can wear many hats. Once the design and implementation phases get into gear there will be a need for less senior people, but the potential payoff will be smaller. But by this time the risk is somewhat lessened (still pretty high though). And hardware engineering is only one factor in a company's success. Sales, marketing, *software*, availability of expansion capital, the competition, the customers (and sometimes the politics) all have to come together. And this is all generalization. Good VCs look at all these factors and they still get it wrong more often than not.Is it easy to be a middle manager? That depends on you. I'm a pretty crappy manager, and I despise the required rigid adherence to schedules (at least in the early stages of a significant technical challenge). I'm a better team leader and mentor, but in the startup I did what I needed to do (and usually what I was supposed to do). Fortunately, in the early stages I had a strong team of motivated engineers. This is a big reason why I prefer startups -- we're all generally pulling in the same direction. In an established company there are more conflicting and competing projects, and often more "empire building". In my limited management career, I was always an engineer first, and usually took on some challenging and interesting tasks, while managing a few junior team members. I expect that different companies have different policies on this. but I would never consider a position where I couldn't get my hands dirty. In my experience, middle managers aren't compensated much better than good engineers. Again -- other places, other outcomes.Advice to my 25-year-old self? Back then I was an engineering tech, or "associate engineer", doing what I enjoyed. I had (and have) no degree, and wasn't making much money. I suppose I would tell myself to hang in there, keep learning, and look for opportunities to grow. Break out of your ruts. Stay positive, make friends. Which is what I did. But as I said before, chaos reigns supreme.I am a generalist, with a few areas of specialization and huge holes in my knowledge. But being a generalist I am (perhaps) more able to use techniques common in one domain and apply them in others. This lets me work around my knowledge gaps and occasionally yields an elegant solution. But I also recognize when my limitations will create difficulties, and am not afraid to turn to experts for help.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2021, 09:53:25 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on June 25, 2021, 09:22:28 pmIn writing this I was thinking of a company that plans to make products and sell them to customers. But often the goal is to develop a product or technology and be acquired in the early stages. A startup may be formed with a particular acquiring company in mind. In this case sales, marketing, expansion etc, is less of an issue.But in our case, the sales team was perhaps as important as the product itself. As an engineer I like to badmouth sales, but our guys were critical to our success and to the expansion of our acquiring company (Cisco) as they penetrated the more traditional telecom market space. Our sales team had earned the trust of our customers, not only while at Cerent, but in their previous jobs. There weren't used-car salesmen, they were experts in the field, many with engineering backgrounds -- but still killer salesmen.