[FRC Blog] Want to Work for FRC?

[Hallry]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 2/27/15: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...o-work-for-frc

Want to Work for FRC?

Blog Date: Friday, February 27, 2015 - 15:16


From the film The Matrix, 1999.

Have a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering AND a burning desire to change the world? Looking for the most challenging, frustrating, fulfilling, exhausting, uplifting job you will probably ever have? We’ve just posted a position for ‘FRC Team Advocate’. You can see all the details here. The job has two primary responsibilities, supporting our Kit of Parts efforts and being a ‘voice’ for teams on the FRC staff. Think you have what it takes? C’mon. Take the red pill. Join us on the other side. Your life will never be the same.

Frank

[eddie12390]

Can they hold on to the position for four years for me?

[the_godfaubel]

Originally Posted by eddie12390

Can they hold on to the position for four years for me?

Agreed

[techhelpbb]

I always find this ironic:

My previous work runs important sections of the world's economy and military.
Only an Associates degree - can't work for FIRST.

For a long, long time, Bill Gates who's company wrote the software that FIRST uses would not qualify for having no Bachelors degree and his current degree is honorary (he has less total time in college class than I do).

Well if I ever want to take a huge pay cut: I'll go back to school to qualify for this opportunity.

Not to say school is of no value, but I judge the value of the employee to be hired on their demonstrated ability to do their job. It's hard to expect schools to develop curriculum around subjects that companies will find value in, when bleeding edge innovation companies are often so far ahead of the schools and possibly don't want to reduce the resale value of that innovation by making it common place.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

I always find this ironic:

My previous work runs important sections of the world's economy and military.
Only an Associates degree - can't work for FIRST.

For a long, long time, Bill Gates who's company wrote the software that FIRST uses would not qualify for having no Bachelors degree and his current degree is honorary (he has less total time in college class than I do).

Well if I ever want to take a huge pay cut: I'll go back to school to qualify for this opportunity.

Not to say school is of no value, but I judge the value of the employee to be hired on their demonstrated ability to do their job. It's hard to expect schools to develop curriculum around subjects that companies will find value in, when bleeding edge innovation companies are often so far ahead of the schools and possibly don't want to reduce the resale value of that innovation by making it common place.

Exactly this. I know that if you apply to work at Apple, Google, or a lot of tech companies over in Silicon Valley, they might ask you just once about your education. Companies like these prefer experience and ability over degrees, which is pretty great. Not saying you shouldn't go to college, but having a degree nowadays isn't worth a whole lot unless you also have experience.

[Katie_UPS]

On this note, why does it require an engineering degree? Nothing about the job description screams engineering at me...

[ratdude747]

Dang, I'm two technicalities from qualifying; my degree I'm about to get is a BS in EET from Purdue New Albany, and I'm not sure what they mean as 1 to 5 "industry experience." I may apply anyway...

Edit- never mind, this doesn't seem like what I want to do with my EET degree. It certainly doesn't seem like anything to do with Engineering or Technology.

[StevenB]

An engineering degree is a kind of experience, and a particularly valuable one at that.

If FIRST says they want someone with the experience of a 4-year engineering program, that's up to them. The job posting also says they desire 1-5 years of industry experience, and that excludes a whole lot of other people (such as myself). If you take a gander at the technical job postings at jobs.google.com and jobs.apple.com, you'll see that the majority say things like "BS in Computer Science or equivalent experience". Some say, "BS/MS is required". And a few say stuff like "PhD + 3 years of industry required". In my random clicking through a couple dozen postings, I only found one that said, "Strong computer science fundamentals required - no matter how you got them."

That said, it's quite possible that FIRST would consider strong applicants who demonstrate that they have experience equivalent to an engineering degree. Why not submit your resume and find out?

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by StevenB

That said, it's quite possible that FIRST would consider strong applicants who demonstrate that they have experience equivalent to an engineering degree. Why not submit your resume and find out?

Education is a kind of experience but so is putting your feet on the road and figuring it out.
In fact the question really becomes increasingly: did your education prepare you to learn faster and solve problems faster than your competitor in any particular situation.
I've yet to see a college graduate with a warranty for performance from the school
Word of mouth about your actual work is really the proof you can do the big things people increasingly expect.
When you can make your customers/employers acknowledge your work.

Then again FIRST doesn't really care whom you employ if you are a vendor.
Guess it's the vendor's problem.

Certainly did not stop me from proposing a control system and several other things to FIRST.
In doing so FIRST got to see my ideas at the early stages while working on the RoboRio.

It is interesting actually I have a younger brother:

He followed me right up (this was before FIRST existed):
Same high school.
Same vocational school also a valedictorian in electronics.
Same community college.
Thing was he went to NJIT and finished the curriculum with a Bachelors.
His company at the time even paid for a big chuck of the Bachelors.

Meanwhile I picked up 2 extra years of experience.

For about 4 years he earned less than me.
Took a job at a semiconductor place here, made a little more than me for 4 years (evened it out).
Now I make about 4x (base salary only - not my bonus) what he did when the semiconductor place basically failed as a company and switched markets.
Over the last few years in fact I managed 2x, then 3x his salary to get to this level of compensation.
He's currently looking for work and every place around here wants to pay him less than he was making.

There's some luck here and there. Differences in where I spend my spare time.
However I actually count my blessings I did not continue down that path myself.
There was a very real pattern: the schools catered to the needs of a very specific list of companies.
Once those companies had issues the value of the particular set of skills they were teaching became less.

I decided I wanted a broader set of skills. Such that I can work in more than a dozen fields professionally.
This meant I could navigate around things other people couldn't and had I done that all via college it would have cost a fortune.
I never had a single student loan.

My brother is a great guy, he'll find work or he will be forced by the circumstances of the education/experience he has to abandon semiconductor work and move to another field.
It is interesting though to see the different directions we took from a common point.