Technician/engineering training - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: blueskull
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 03:53:01 pm
content: How would you convince an old professor who despises practical technical/engineering works and values only high end research?I don't have to do this, but I feel compelled to do so.I'm leaving my current postdoc position in US in half a year, and I will be starting my new career in either China or Japan.Before I leave, I would like to train someone with some practical engineering as I'm the only practical guy in the group.I helped every single other PhD in our group during my time on their dissertation projects, and I personally took a number of projects.As I leave, they will be left with no aids on the practical side, and trust me, they don't do well in getting things laid out and built.We just had an incident where a 6th-year PhD student probed a high side MOSFET Vgs with a passive common ground probe, and almost blew up the scope, and potentially, himself.The only thing that saved the disaster from happening was his equally bad circuit design -- the converter never started up properly.Similarly, we had other electrical, pneumatic and machining mishaps, all from lack of practical engineering training.Another fact is that we don't have anyone who can design PCBs properly rest of myself, and the professor is fine with that as he deems that as technician's (worthless) labor.And of course, no one can code on an MCU, a PC or anywhere.The lab did run for a few years, as we didn't have any system-level projects before me, and since then, I took all the coding and PCB layout works.I tried to convince my professor to train one of our students with some practical side of things, but he insisted to let him learn naturally.He believes practical engineering can be learned just from doing more research, and he did so personally -- but he has 130+ IQ.So if you were me, how would you convince your boss to give up the scientist's ego?

author: m98
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 04:08:27 pm
content: Are there any hard benefits for you if you do? If there's one important lesson that I've learned so far, then it's that you can't force people to their own advantage. Try to give good advice, but if you stumble upon deaf ears, there is only so much you can do.If he's fine with students killing themselves and burning the lab down due to a lack of training, he's responsible.

author: HalFET
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 04:13:39 pm
content: Speaking from personal experience, this is the research equivalent of beating a death horse.i.e. "How dare you bring your impure engineering into my science!" comes to mind. If there's a student who wants to listen, teach them a few basics and hope that they figure it out if that makes you feel better. But yeah, it's easier to just give up, take a step backwards, grab some popcorn, and watch the implosion.I gave up myself when I saw idiots blow up a Keithley electrometer source meter because they couldn't figure out what a triax cable was.

author: radioactive
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 04:15:45 pm
content: Spend as much time as you can in the next 6 months getting all of your reference documentation / notes up to date for the next guy. Don't look back.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 04:26:06 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 26, 2019, 04:10:31 pmThe greatest help might be to just leave and let reality slap them around the face.

author: ferdieCX
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 04:57:33 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 26, 2019, 04:24:51 pmYou should make exactly that.You are Chinese, so you know that in martial arts you learn by observing your master and then doing.If the professor and the other guys despise practical engineering, they deserve to suffer the consequences of their attitude.This attitude is very common among people in some universities, they just look down at the technical universities.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 05:16:53 pm
content: Or maybe you could start a discussion with him about Kirchhoff's laws.

author: HalFET
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 05:50:35 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 26, 2019, 04:24:51 pmWe had a controlling post-doc/supervisor like this, he intentionally sabotaged me at every step by blocking my ability to perform experiments or build my own measurement setups. He wanted things done "his way", eventough his way was horribly inaccurate and led to useless results and involved a lot of time intensive work with little rewards. I didn't give up, but it pushed me to the edge of a burnout having to deal with a twat like that for five years straight. When I joined he had just taken over the lead of a team of six people, in January the last person of that team (me) left for good. Everyone else was sick of him...The only way to get around folks like this is to simply ignore them whenever you can and not explain anything to them.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 06:07:54 pm
content: There's the old saying "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink."I think this is a futile endeavor, especially when someone is old and set in their ways. You have a finite number of hours before you inevitably end up in the grave. Don't waste them now trying to do something that is unlikely to succeed and unlikely to benefit you any even if it does. Some people are just not useful and do not see the value in useful practical knowledge.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 06:23:37 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 26, 2019, 05:23:04 pmI was expecting that, hence the joke.Sadly, this violent disdain for engineers from the academic world, which incidentally is at the core of "The Big Bang Theory" sitcom, seems here to stay.There's probably nothing much you can do to convince him. They tend to consider engineers barely as technicians, and for them technicians are kinda like the cleaning lady.

author: ferdieCX
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2019, 06:36:22 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 26, 2019, 05:23:04 pmI agree with you if, as it is very likely in your lab, you are working with very expensive stuff.But, the issue with the MOSFET should not happen to anyone who has a DMM and an old analog scope at home and has done something useful with them.I know about a graduated engineer, that almost never has touched a soldering iron.Another one, while he was a student, got as a present a new Hameg scope. He wanted to sell it, because "I have nothing to do with it"

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 03:59:17 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 26, 2019, 03:53:01 pmQuoteTechnicians/practical engineers tend to develop an intuitive understanding of things. The job of a researcher is exactly the opposite: to defy intuition. The underlying nature of things is not intuitive. So some researchers tend to despise practical works exactly because of that.Trying to convince researchers to spend their time with intuitive tasks can be as painful as trying to convince technicians and practical engineers that their intuition is wrong.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 05:04:37 am
content: There are basically two types of engineers: engineers that think getting a PhD is a good idea, and engineers that can actually build stuff in the real world. A PhD that can build stuff and doesn't have the superiority complex that makes them a total pain to work with is a unicorn.This is why it's so damn hard to work with PhD people most of the time. This feeling of educational superiority is silly. Now there is nothing wrong with specializing. It lets you get deeper into the weeds of what you are really interested in than you would ever get being a generalist. Go be a real scientist. That's fine. The world needs scientists to come up with the tools us design engineers need to make stuff. Just also respect what you sacrificed to be a specialist and that you lack some of the basic skills required to navigate the real engineering world on your own....and to address the OP's question... That's not your job to fix the PhD culture. Get out of academia while you still have a soul.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 11:01:53 am
content: Quote from: Smokey on February 27, 2019, 05:04:37 amMy my, you do seem to have a chip on your shoulder.Your experience of PhDs is very different to mine. But then I start from the presumption that everybody has different skills, and to get a working circuit/product/etcyou need a combination of skills that you cannot find in a single person.To give an example from a different field:if I need a diagnosis and a course of treatment, I want a doctor not a nurseif I need blood extracted or a plaster cast, I want a nurse not a doctorif I need both, I want both a nurse and a doctorQuote"Yes", and "that depends on the OP's talents/desires not yours", respectively.

author: HalFET
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 11:26:31 am
content: Quote from: Smokey on February 27, 2019, 05:04:37 amI know plenty of folks who fall into the third category, sadly it's usually the first category who opens their mouth and gets noticed. Just as with regular engineering graduates, more than half couldn't hook up a power supply to a set of battery tabs, even if their life depended on it. Those end up being incompetent project managers.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 01:12:06 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 27, 2019, 11:01:53 amI was, once upon a time, a manager and part of my job was to take on students for 'industry' experience, give them some real world training etc.I have to say, there were only two who were worth a damn, one went on to work at CERN, the other disappeared off the face of the earth after getting a job with a company that made things that go bang (I don't think he went bang but have bever been able to track him down).The rest were utterly convinced of the magnificence and their ability to teach those poor souls who hadn't the wit to get a doctorate how to do their job.Now, I'm ever hopeful that they eventually had their expectations thoroughly managed and found their level in life but I have an awful lot of sympathy for Smokey's opinion, the guys I experienced were mostly arseholes.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 03:09:42 pm
content: Quote from: HalFET on February 27, 2019, 11:26:31 amThere's too much truth in that.Everybody should always keep Sturgeon's Law in mind

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 04:03:12 pm
content: Quote from: Smokey on February 27, 2019, 05:04:37 amPerhaps you need to mix with more PhDs. All sorts of people become PhDs. Working with the really smart ones is easy, and satisfying. Working with the less able ones, who got their PhD by putting all the intellectual capacity they have into one narrow field, can be a problem. They are lost when required to reason outside their domain, or about how their domain interacts with others. They often don't realise this is because they aren't very able, and become difficult as a defensive response. Perhaps the PhDs you've worked with fall into this category.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 04:39:54 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 27, 2019, 04:03:12 pmThat's a reasonable observation that also applies to people without a PhD.Any halfway decent interview ought to be able to distinguish between those characteristics.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 05:05:08 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 27, 2019, 04:39:54 pmHave you seen the statistics on how poorly people selected by interview work out? Most people are hopeless at assessing a person's capabilities from an interview with them. Its so bad some psychologists think most companies will eventually ban job interviews to reduce lawsuits. I dread to think what this will do to the prospects of highly capable people, seeing how poorly other selection methods identify them.

author: HalFET
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 05:50:35 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 27, 2019, 04:39:54 pmWhat do you consider a good job interview though? I've had exactly two decent job interviews in my entire career so far out of a considerable quantity. The weird part is also that I've had to actively reject multiple offers because they asked me to do morally questionable things. (i.e. make railway safety systems wireless)One where they started asking circuit design questions, at a now defunct television manufacturer. And another where they started asking about the influence of radiation on electronics after which we had a nice chat about the implications for fault-tolerant circuit design for high radiation environments, that was for a company that designs space flight hardware. All others were mediocre at best when it came down to the technical aspects. So I don't have too much trust in job interviews.

author: ferdieCX
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 07:45:01 pm
content: Quote from: HalFET on February 27, 2019, 05:50:35 pmTo begin with, it should be conducted by a practicing engineer that is in the same team for which the new engineer will be hired.Keep out HR-people and psychologists.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 08:03:35 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 27, 2019, 05:05:08 pmIn the good companies I've worked for, interviews workverywell. Of course the right people must be involved, and you must know what you are/aren't looking for, and it takes a lot of time and effort - but hiring the right people is absolutely essential. One necessity (I've seen it several times) is to prevent HR from filtering out CVs they think aren't suitable.In the crap companies, ... well there is a reason they are crap.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 08:18:25 pm
content: Quote from: HalFET on February 27, 2019, 05:50:35 pmOne which allows the candidate to say what they've achieved previously, then to press them to find the limits of what they actually know and/or are prepared to claim. At that point the bullshitters are obvious.Next move onto technical questions that are relevant to what we want them to do, and stretch them to see how they think and approach problems - especially how they learn the new skills that you will require. If they can learn new skills, good.Avoid fruitlessly interrogating them about things outside their skillset, avoid "trick" questions with single correct answers.Do ask questions that have multiple valid answers, to see if they have imagination and critical faculties. Best if those questions can also be used to let them realise how your company works.QuoteYes, the interview should reveal a lot about the company and the people!Yes, I didn't want to work for most companies!QuoteI don't havetoomuch trust eitherBut I can tell when (as a candidate or interviewer) it is going sufficiently well that I might want to make/accept an offer.

author: bsfeechannel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 10:42:04 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 27, 2019, 04:03:12 pmMy experience with researchers and academic people has always been the best possible. Perhaps because my relationship with them has most of the time been the result of me being hired to turn their work into a practical product.The respect has always been mutual. They've never interfered with my approach to their technology, and I've never told them how to do their job. While I was busy trying to build a product to comply with regulations, standards, cost constraints, form factors, etc., etc., etc., they were free to give their next step.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2019, 11:48:38 pm
content: Quote from: bsfeechannel on February 27, 2019, 10:42:04 pmYes indeed. Mutual respect for each others strengths/weaknesses is the key.

author: HalFET
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2019, 12:34:18 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 27, 2019, 08:18:25 pmThe main thing I notice at that point is how folks deal with being unable to answer a question. The good engineer always seems to go "I'm not certain, but I think it might be like ...", the bullshitter will make up stuff, and the idiot will go "derp".Quote from: tggzzz on February 27, 2019, 08:18:25 pmThere's an important part of the job interview you're forgetting. "Am I talking to a normal person?" I usually find that one quite important.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2019, 05:35:41 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 27, 2019, 08:03:35 pmThat's the truth. I don't even know why, but HR people everywhere seem to be universally hopeless at selecting viable engineering candidates. They are remarkably adept at filtering out all the really good ones and collecting together all the bullshitters who have shamelessly seeded their resumes with all the keywords. The only way I've ever found good jobs is by knowing someone that enabled me to bypass HR and get my resume in front of the hiring manager.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2019, 08:01:05 am
content: Quote from: HalFET on February 28, 2019, 12:34:18 amYes indeed.It isalwaysworth trying to provoke a negative answer, since only then can you begin to trust positive answers. Works in both directions in interviews, in both directions in sales/clients meetings, with politicians...QuoteYes, but...There have been a small number of cases where I and colleagues have explicity asked ourselves, "if we had been interviewing X, would we have recruited them?". We have had our doubts, even though we knew X was an extremely competent, imaginative and shy engineer. In one case X booked 25 hours to a project one day, since he came in at 9am on Saturday and left at 10am on Sunday; the fun and zany company accepted thatHe also came into the lab on a Christmas day, because a problem was knawing at him.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2019, 08:04:44 am
content: Quote from: james_s on February 28, 2019, 05:35:41 amI've done that too.You need to understand HR. They are paper shufflers whose primary job is to prevent the bosses from accidentally breaking employment laws. Their main motivation is to avoid any blame that could settle on them by hiring an awkward employee. It doesn't matter (to them) if they also avoid extremely competent employees.

author: HalFET
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2019, 10:43:12 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 28, 2019, 08:01:05 amThe only position you'd hire a politician for is spokes person, simply to see which sort of BS you can feed them before they realise they're speaking BS.Quote from: tggzzz on February 28, 2019, 08:01:05 amI'm not too worried about shyness, but I am talking about really dysfunctional personalities. We had some people who were so paranoid that they password protected all their project files on network drives, refused to socialise "because we might steal ideas", and things like that. Their behaviour was an active nuisance towards everyone else to the point that it made it entirely impossible to work together with them. While I do like colleagues that I can go and grab a beer with after work, I don't consider that a requirement!

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2019, 02:32:58 pm
content: Quote from: HalFET on February 28, 2019, 10:43:12 amVery old observation: can't buy Pathan fighters, but you can rent them.The same is true of politicians, and that's the only sense in which I would hire them(For non-native English speakers: "hire" can mean rentoremploy)QuoteOnce upon a time, the company I was working for was taken over and we were to be moved to another site 15 miles away in a revolting "new town". When interviewing us (i.e. engineers) individually, the new HR and CEO told us that we could go out with our co-workers in the evenings. We were all surprised by thatconcept- while we got on well with each other, we all had very different interests outside work.I prefer to keep work and play separate, since when (not if) one goes wrong, there's a high probability the other hasn't

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2019, 05:20:38 am
content: I've met quite a few of my long term friends through work, guys I'm still hanging out with >15 years and several jobs later. I don't typically hang out with my whole group of coworkers outside of work but in most jobs I've had I've met at least a handful of people that I have enough in common with that they make good friends.

author: HalFET
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2019, 08:52:59 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 28, 2019, 02:32:58 pmI list them as consumables.Quote from: tggzzz on February 28, 2019, 02:32:58 pmMhhh, maybe. I enjoy grabbing a Friday evening beer with some colleagues. I don't necessarily hang out with them at other times (though with a select few I do), but it's nice to have that occasionally.