EE Job Question - Semiconductor Type Stuff

[user101]

http://careers.peopleclick.com/jobposts/Client40_GLDTR/BU1/External/139-27001.htm?ShowReturn=Yes

Can someone in the EE or semiconductor field specifically give me more insight into this job position? It's for an internship type job and I was picked to interview for it.

Is this something worthwile to pursue? I enjoyed my semiconductor class in college, so I don't mind the topic. An internship is an internship, right? Will it hurt if I take a semiconductor related internship before I graduate and try to apply for jobs with defense contractors or positions that aren't SC related? If I get the job and do well, I can possibly have a better chance at AMD or IBM upon graduation because of the partnership between them. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/07/03/amd_hiring_staff_for_ibm/

 

[chroot]

I'm a mixed-signal IC designer.

What do you want to do for a career? It honestly doesn't really matter if you do something in an internship that is directly applicable to your future career. Interviewers will just want to see something that challenged you and taught you a few things.

Pick an internship that will excite or interest you.

- Warren

 

[user101]

Thank you. I figured that this would be so... the field itself wouldn't really matter.

Do you think you can explain the job a little more to me, as a professional in the field?

 

[berkeman]

Looks like the internship is performing support duties for the IC design group. When you design ICs, in addition to architecture work and RTL coding (or analog design with SPICE, etc.), there is a tremendous amount of work that goes into building the design (hooking all the pieces together), checking and verifying the design, and generally interfacing with the design tools environment. The tasks mentioned in that job description are basically those support tasks, which is still fine and would likely be pretty interesting for you. The senior designers like to have support people doing those other tasks, so that they can focus on the architecture and design and bug-fixing tasks (which are the most interesting, as you would expect).

You will gain some useful skills in that internship, but to some extent, those skills are centered around supporting IC design. Some of the general skills like writing scripts in Perl or programs in C are applicable to many other EE tasks. But working with IC validation tools is pretty specialized.

Overall it sounds like a good fit. Definitely worth you interviewing with them, IMO. Remember, part of the interview is you being able to learn a lot more about what the job really is. Be sure to ask enough questions and look at the work environment enough to be able to make a informed decision.

 

[DefaultName]

I know you guys work in industry, chroot and berkeman. So, I hope you can answer this Q for me. Anyone else, go right ahead, too. Thanks.

If I do work in the defense industry for an internship, will I still be considered for positions in other industries? If I work specifically with radar type stuff (obviously I won't be doing anything as complex or involved as a real engineer would, but on an intern level), will it still make me competitive in other industries? Let's say I want to get a job with IBM or Microsoft...

 

[DefaultName]

Sorry berkeman, again I'm logged in another PC at work. Didn't mean to do it. It'd be best if you could just delete DefaultName from the list. I'll switch over to user101 permanently, now...

Thanks.

 

[chroot]

There's a lot of cross-over from various subdisciplines of EE to others. It doesn't really matter what companies you've worked for, or what companies you want to work for -- what matters are the specific roles you have experienced, and the skills and knowledge you have gained.

- Warren

 

[user101]

I see. It really doesn't matter then, for me to work in the defense or any other industry, as long as I'm doing some sort of EE work and will gain some practical knowledge from it.

My other question is I have an internship offering from Boeing for a CS type job. It's for testing real-time flight software. If I took that position, would it hurt or help me for a fulltime job search as an EE? I'm asking since this is sort of out my major. I understand that EEs have to program, which I'm completely fine with, but should I even consider an internship with all programming?

Sorry if my questions seem very "obvious", I'm just not sure what's in the minds of recruiting HR and real engineers out in the workforce when they look for a candidate. Obviously, it'll depend on the manager/company/project/task, but just curious about a general viewpoint.

Thanks again.

 

[berkeman]

I see. It really doesn't matter then, for me to work in the defense or any other industry, as long as I'm doing some sort of EE work and will gain some practical knowledge from it.

My other question is I have an internship offering from Boeing for a CS type job. It's for testing real-time flight software. If I took that position, would it hurt or help me for a fulltime job search as an EE? I'm asking since this is sort of out my major. I understand that EEs have to program, which I'm completely fine with, but should I even consider an internship with all programming?

Sorry if my questions seem very "obvious", I'm just not sure what's in the minds of recruiting HR and real engineers out in the workforce when they look for a candidate. Obviously, it'll depend on the manager/company/project/task, but just curious about a general viewpoint.

Thanks again.

First of all, that sounds like a very fun job! Testing real-time flight software, like do you mean a simulator? Or do you mean flight controls stuff? What do you get to play with?

Second, if it has very little to do with the things you want to do in your eventual work, then your time might be better spent on a different internship. Like, if you will eventually be using scripting languages like Perl to support some of your hardware design activities, and this present position is all C++ or other high-level language experience, then it's not going to be a big help in the long run. But if whatever software you will be working with at this internship is not that different from what you may use in your future work as support programming (like if it's C in both places, for example), then the experience will be of help.