Bringing PCB to interview - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: hazuki
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 03:21:38 am
content: Hi all,I've got an interview coming up, and I was asked to give a presentation about my hardware design experience. I'd like to describe what I've worked on, but I think it would be easier if I was to just show the interviewers my PCBs. I'm hesitant to do so because I still work at this company, and the PCB is technically their property, right?Here's my question:When is it ethical to bring a PCB that you've developed for a company into a job interview? As long as you don't let them keep it, is it ok to show? I don't suspect there is any conflict of interest at all between the company I am interviewing for and the company where I currently work.Thanks

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 04:13:26 am
content: I don't see anything wrong with that. In the movie/TV production business it is practically expected to have a "demo reel" of examples of your work. Even though all of the examples are certainly copyright by the production companies.

author: mij59
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 04:23:09 am
content: Hi,There could be something like a confidentiality clause in your contract.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 04:25:33 am
content: Quote from: hazuki on August 10, 2014, 03:21:38 amI wouldn't bring property of my employer to a job interviewed. I don't think it will look good. Do you have any other work of yours you can bring?

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 04:41:15 am
content: It is not OK to bring / show /discuss property, physical or intellectual property, of your current employer to an interview. Not even if you aren't bound by a confidentiality clause or by law. It can actually fire back. Your potential new employer might get the impression you can not be trusted.But why don't you design one or a few example PCBs on your own time, at home, using your own tools (not using any software from your employer)? Depending on the complexity of the PCB you could even get a few made by a PCB service, using your own mones. And them maybe even populate one to show that it works. Again using your own money.When you design the PCB you could take a few snapshots of intermediate steps and document them on some slides for your presentation.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 08:32:34 am
content: Ask your current employer. Or at least ask about a picture, or something -- much less harm in that than a physical prototype. If you're afraid to ask... there's probably a reason why...Personally, I tend to bringthisaround. I made it back in, like, 2007 or something like that, so it's not especially representative of my current state of knowledge. But I'm pretty happy with how it turned out:- It's hand made. Signs: I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. Hand printed, hand drilled, hand soldered. And, all those hand made steps were done with care (of course, this neglects the other boards I made that didn't turn out so well for various reasons..).- It looks nice. Shiny, reasonable layout, easy to see where everything is and what's going on.- It sucks. So, I can talk about things I did wrong, and "what I would do differently" now.If you don't have any examples like this, make your own. There's no harm in bringing a pad and pen and drawing something up. Maybe you can't illustrate so directly and exactly as a physical sample does, but you can still discuss in general terms.You wouldn't want to get so specific as to indicate what chips and pinouts and routing and everything you did... and such information is hardly relevant to the interviewer, anyway. But I don't see any harm in a vague description. Example: microcontroller here, FPGA there; assorted digital logic; line drivers; etc. There's a million projects that have those sorts of requirements, so the generality is relevant to almost anything.Routing technique would be better described than drawn, i.e., draw an ugly bunch of lines and describe it as 'dozens' (e.g.) of traces, spaced evenly, give or take the design rules, or other constraints (e.g., 6/6 mil minimum trace thickness / spacing; maybe up to 8-16 mil for impedance controlled lines; whatever).If you are asked about some of these things in more depth, again, don't go into very specific detail (or indicate that you don't think you should talk about it -- that's fine, they'll understand), but if you can, do be honest. If you made an informed choice, talk about the reasons; if you didn't, say you didn't know about it -- yet another thing to put on your mental list of "things I don't know but should learn about some day". There's always a learning opportunity in something!Tim

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 11:36:32 am
content: If it's a PCB from a product available on the open market (e.g. PC motherboard, video card, DVD player, etc.), I certainly wouldn't have any concerns about it. If it's for something that can't be bought on the open market, then I would be more careful.

author: Jay_Diddy_B
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 11:55:35 am
content: Hi,From personal experience. I have *NOT* hired somebody who showed up to an interview with the product that they were working on at their current employer.I asked what have you been working on? and the candidate pulled an item from his bag and placed it on the table.I would encourage you take an picture of the products that you have worked on that have been released either on the internet, on datasheets or in product manuals. These are in the public domain and I would not consider them a security risk.If you have your own projects, projects that you have built while studying or at home I would encourage you to take those or pictures of those along. If you claim them to be your design, be prepared to answer questions like 'How did you select this component?', "Why did you build it like that?'Good luck !!Jay_Diddy_B

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 12:01:42 pm
content: I've taken a pcb to an interview, but it was one I did at school whilst looking for university sponsoorship.To take your employers property to another is wrong. I've seen people walked off site for showing round another companies intellectual property.By all means take something you've developed at home, or even at work if you're allowed to do home projects there, but anything else is likely to be counter-productive.

author: poorchava
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 12:27:42 pm
content: Definitely yes, unless it's something that is not your intellectual property anymore. I dunno how about other countries, but in Poland a standard thing in a job contract which involves engineering is a separate annex which says that all IP rights to the stuff you have developed while working for the company automatically transfer to the company.So personnal work or other work for which you don't have any confidentiality agreements - by all means: physical examples, videos, schematics, drawings, 3d graphics etc.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 12:58:59 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on August 10, 2014, 11:36:32 amOr a product shown on their website

author: hazuki
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 01:47:28 pm
content: Thank you all for the meaningful replies. I do have some personal projects, although they aren't as interesting or as advanced as what I do at work. I'll bring those instead and try to make the best of them.Thanks again!

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 06:18:02 pm
content: Quote from: hazuki on August 10, 2014, 01:47:28 pmAlso, pay attention to the home-country of the company (and HQ staff from "home"). Folks are more exposed to their own country's law, thus more likely to be their default expectation.In the USA, many jobs at merely college-graduate level will require non-disclosure and the employer owns all the work you do - in or out of the office.

author: pickle9000
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 07:23:14 pm
content: Of course you can make a point of not bringing and actual item, state simply that to do so would not be ethical and the same would hold for any past or future employer. You could however describe the item in general terms even a name or model number( that should be OK). As a person who was other side of the table (the interviewer) I would appreciate that more. Do bring anything else you can.

author: Jay_Diddy_B
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2014, 07:26:25 pm
content: hazuki,I would explain in the interview that you didn't think that it was appropriate for you to show the work that you had done for your current employer without their permission, which would be difficult to get without revealing that you are looking for another job. This is a very reasonable and understandable explanation.I would not worry about showing your own projects. There is no doubt that it is your work. You can explain if you did again today what you would do differently.I have interviewed people where the conversation went like this:What was the last project you work on?I worked on the xyz.What did you do?I was the designerDid you design it all?No, I just made a small change to an existing design.You see this interview isn't going very well.Remember the interview is a two-way conversation. You are interviewing them to see if you want to work there.Make sure you know what the company does that you are being interviewed by.Here another situation that doesn't play very well.Thank you for coming today, do you know what we do here?I am sorry I don't.[ The correct answer is: I understand (from your website) that you are a major player in the xyz widget market ]Why are you here? if you don't know what we do?I need a job and the employment agency sent me here.You can see where this is going ...Unfortunately, these examples aren't too far from actual interviews that I have conducted.Regards,Jay_Diddy_B

author: SL4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2014, 03:16:53 am
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on August 10, 2014, 04:13:26 amAn interesting point.Many years ago, as the 'physical creator' of the work - the production facility had similar hold on the production IP as the authors/producers (limiting unauthorised duplication/distribution etc) - due to the specialist skills invested in creating the material. If I recall, it was known as 'mechanical copyright' --- not sure where that stands today.So you can't sell it, or claim as your own product - but youcanstop the other guy from popping off copies wherever they want - if they don't offer to use your original facility to do the work first / or buy out the reproduction rights at some time prior.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2014, 05:29:46 am
content: I don't see anything wrong with showing them a bare board (with company names/logo's removed . ALL pcb designers go shopping for a job that way. It is the only way to show off their routing skill and style .Neither is anything wrong with showing them a product that is available for public purchase.If you'd walk in there with the design database... That's a different matter... I still have the dsl modems i worked on. These were available for public purchase. So nothing secret in there.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2014, 05:54:07 am
content: I would say definitely NOT a product in development.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2014, 06:05:09 am
content: It's fine if you get permission to show the stuff.But i would definitely mention that you obtained permission so they know you are trustworthy.You could ask your employer about the rules for talking to other people about their products.No need to mention it's for an interview with another company, just ask in general.Like maybe you have an uncle who is really interested in <insert products the company makes> and keeps asking you questions about your work. So you want to know if its ok to talk about product XYZ.

author: Fred27
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 11, 2014, 09:26:48 am
content: I totally agree with Psi. Don't just get permission but ensure your potential new employer knows you got permission. Otherwise it could count against you. And if you worked in a team make sure you're clear about what part of that board is actually your work.I had someone come for an interview (coding) with screenshots of a previous project. He had no idea this could be a bad idea. Aside from the fact that a screenshot tells you little about the code, he hadn't even thought about the fact it now belonged to his employer and he should have asked if it was OK.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2014, 10:49:45 am
content: Ask your employer to put a good word on paper as a reference. This could include pictures or samples of your work. Some companies give a few engineering samples or first production mask-sets of products away to employees as "medal" that you worked on that project.But this is probably not happening if you've worked on classified or confidential projects.If the relationship still allows this cooperation... You're leaving on good terms right?

author: sparknmike
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 11, 2014, 06:32:24 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on August 11, 2014, 05:29:46 amIn my experience as both a prospective employee and an employer, this is fairly good advice. There is no way to know for sure how someone will respond to what you do since the person on the other side of the table may have strong feelings that may or may not agree with the norm. In a way, that is a part of the interview process that goes the other direction. If you do something you have thought through and are comfortable with and they throw you out of the building then that may not be a place you want to work.There are a few key points that I will elaborate on:1) Bringing something that is currently under development will be touchy. You may accidentally let out information on something your current employer is trying to patent or at least keep as a trade secret. Try your best to stick to designs that are in production and mature enough that everyone knows which IP might be in a locked box somewhere.2) Bringing something that was not generally available to the public is a little risky. There may be sensitive information in the design that isn't common knowledge because nobody can even put their hands on the equipment. This could even be something that wasn't on the board you brought but there were clues as to what else was in the system because of what is on that board. If you brought something that was already available to the potential employer then you have really done nothing to harm your current employer.3) If you are interviewing with a company that in some way competes with your current employer or they are strongly associated with a competitor to your current employer don't even think of bringing something from your current employer. This could be enough to make your current employer terminate you and send thugs after you.4) Bring a blank board so they can see some of your work. Any information that would let them duplicate the board or tie it to a specific product or model should be omitted. This makes it harder for them to infer things or to even say what they saw other than some fine work.You do want to do anything you can to show you are everything you claim. In any interviews I have conducted I have found that most of the candidates can't do what they say and wouldn't be able to do what they claim even after a year of training.Just providing solid proof that you are what you claim will put you on the short list of candidates that are actually in the running for a position. At that point the process becomes complicated as there are many factors that will weigh in for which candidate is deemed the best available.Something else that you may want to try if you find yourself unwilling to bring anything you have worked on is to bring some random board and talk about what you see. It is a little harder to break the discussion into that direction since it doesn't really show what you have done. The reason I suggest that is that I have done that with candidates for certain positions. In my case I am conducting the interview and handing them a board they have never seen, and usually I grab one that is big with a lot of interesting features at different levels of the design. I start off asking them easy questions and rather than moving on to difficult questions I just open the floor and ask them to tell me about anything that catches their eye. Most of the time they just flop and I might as well have handed them a brick. So far, nobody has sounded like Dave tearing down a piece of equipment. That is a little expected because I haven't had to fill a one of the higher positions in many years. But I could see that working for you, *if* you can take control of the interview and talk about things that are either very complicated or not obvious to someone from outside of the field. When you bring the board though it won't be enough to point at a few components and talk about their purpose or to point at a few traces and give an explanation of a fairly common routing concept.