) that has suggested the Valley could be the next Rust Belt. The work is
"mainly a way to vent and counter the cheerleading that goes on in the press, and part of it is a backup-in case I lose my
job," said the 46-year-old rep for a major semiconductor maker.
"I operate as though I could lose my job tomorrow. I have no debt, my money is invested
conservatively and I am renting on a six-month lease," said Martin. "My view is [that] the segment of people getting rich
in Silicon Valley will keep getting more and more narrow."
Keeping a balance
Indeed, job security crumbled in the dot-com bust of 2001. Now the balance between
work and personal life is swinging in the breeze for cell phone- and laptop-wielding engineers tied to colleagues and customers
spread across the United States, Asia and Europe.
In EE Times' "2005 State of the Engineer Survey," work/life balance tied with outsourcing
as a top concern for engineers, right behind salaries and job security. There are plenty of reasons why.
The average U.S. engineer reports that the work week has stretched out to 47.1 hours.
However, only about half of the 39 percent of U.S. engineers who earned four weeks or more of annual vacation actually took
it.
Meanwhile, promotions have become scarce. Only 24 percent of engineers said they
had a promotion in the past year (down from 28 percent in 2004), while the number who have seen no promotion in more than
five years rose from 18 to 24 percent.
Topping it off, 56 percent of respondents said there is a shortage of engineers at
their company. Many are living in an environment of layoffs and job freezes, where the words "new hire" either go unspoken
or refer to new colleagues in India and China.
"I work for Nortel. We haven't hired new engineers in five years," said one of more
than two dozen respondents expressing similar views. "We've only laid off workers the last four years," said another. "All
new hires are from non-U.S.A. markets," said a third.
Symbolic of the squeeze, one engineer in Intel Corp.'s Hillsboro, Ore., labs reported
the company recently shrank the standard cubicle size.
"It is hard to maintain a positive attitude when there are mediocre to no raises
and mediocre bonuses for the past four years, yet the company expects you to produce more with fewer people on the teams and
more products in parallel," said another Intel engineer who asked to remain anonymous. "Trying to prop up the stock price
on the backs of employees, by reducing discretionary spending and salaries, is taking its toll in the industry."
Did you get the e-mail?
Despite tough times, 68 percent of engineers who took our survey said they are generally
satisfied with their employers and careers. A whopping 88 percent said they were very or somewhat satisfied with engineering
overall-thanks to a wide variety of reasons, including techniques the EEs use for keeping a positive attitude.
Only about a quarter said they need to be available 24/7. But that roughly 25 percent
is a very vocal group. Nearly 400 respondents provided examples of how employers keep them on a tight electronic leash to
customers, design teams or manufacturing sites around the planet.
"I am required to carry a cell phone 24/7. I am called any time there is a problem,
and expected to answer. We have had people terminated for not answering phones," said one respondent.
Others said they are expected to respond to cell phone calls and the "constant e-mail
traffic, even on vacation."
"I went to an optometrist appointment at 8 p.m. one evening," said another respondent.
"[When] I returned, my wife told [me] my supervisor's supervisor called about a problem and was unhappy that I was not at
home to take the call."
That urgency might stem from a software bug troubling a design team in India, a manufacturing
flaw in a plant in China, an EDA glitch in Israel or a customer crash in Europe or Japan.
"We are a worldwide company with customers and engineering staff all over the world,"
said one respondent. "To accommodate and manage the time zones, I am expected to make myself available at any time. [For example,]
answering e-mail and phone calls on Sunday to accommodate the 12-hour time difference in other countries is expected."
"I lead a global development and production team located in Europe, the U.S. and
Asia," said another respondent. "We regularly hold Net Meeting conferences at 6 a.m., 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. local time. These
team meetings often last two hours or more." On top of that, "I am expected to be ready for international travel within 24
hours for durations of one month or more," he added.
Two respondents said they have participated in conference calls scheduled for 3 a.m.
Another engineer said the 24/7 workday was less a corporate mandate and more "a natural
consequence of ambitious people working hard together."
Nod for no?
It's no surprise, then, that many respondents said communications skills are becoming
increasingly key for working in today's geographically dispersed, multicultural teams.
"This is both the most fun and most frustrating part of my job," said an automotive
engineer working for a Japanese company. "Having done international work for many years, I have known about different design
philosophies of various regions."
Sometimes even simple regional nuances can give meetings an interesting twist. One
respondent discovered that for engineers from India, "shaking their head side to side means they are following what you are
saying, not saying 'no,' like in our culture."
A few engineers said universities need to do a better job in shaping engineers into
team players.
"Most young kids just out of college are very competent technically, but they don't
work well in a team atmosphere. I attribute that to having too few labs where projects are assigned and graded as a team effort,"
said one respondent.
As many as 100 respondents commented on the need for better writing, speaking and
presentation skills as engineers deal with one another and with customers.
Layers within layers
The diversity of the global networked environment is matched by the increasing complexity
of the underlying technology. Respondents who did have experience with new hires said one characteristic they most lack today
is a broad appreciation for the whole chain of interrelated links in an electronics industry that stretches from the business
issues down to the services, systems, software and silicon.
This criticism took many forms. Some pointed to a lack of appreciation for the difficulties
in chip verification and test; others found skills lacking in packaging, analog or RF design. Several respondents said the
new crop of engineers is too narrowly focused on software.
"It seems more common now that new engineers lack a gut-feel understanding of silicon.
They are fantastic software operators, but often don't know what's really happening underneath, making silicon debug difficult
for them," said one respondent.
"There seems to be a decreasing pool of quality hardware and systems engineers, while
the software engineering pool continues to grow," added another.
Even in the software arena, many respondents found young engineers wanting. Many
said the newbies are too PC-focused and lacked embedded-software skills. Others pointed to shortcomings in nearly every aspect
of software design, from high-level Web code such as XML, Perl and scripting languages to C++, Linux or deep-in-the-trenches
assembly language.
New engineers lack an "understanding of the difference between a mere piece of running
software and a commercial product; and the understanding that this difference is hugely important in the real world," said
one engineer.
Others said that new hires don't have an "understanding of working with existing
software systems-which comprise the vast majority of software work in the industry-as opposed to always starting from scratch."
Hit the gym
In an effort to keep a positive attitude at work in the face of these challenges,
some engineers said they religiously take out time for working out.
"The only excuse for missing my 3x-per-week workout with a personal trainer is being
out of town," said a manager from one large networking company who asked to remain anonymous. "At least one day of each weekend
is spent cutting down trees and/or clearing bushes on a large wooded lot. The pleasure of immediate accomplishments and a
simple, consistent tool set make Monday mornings bearable."
Engineer Chris Haidinyak agrees and adds, "Find at least one measurable activity
to perform every day-[and] something to laugh at as often as possible."
Other respondents say that they just need to draw a hard boundary at their doorstep
at the end of the day. "Usually, when I go home, I check out from work. I avoid checking e-mail or doing any work-related
stuff at home," said one respondent.
Ed Jackson, a principal engineer at startup Engenio Information Technologies Inc.
(Boulder, Colo.), makes that a general prescription. "Don't take your work laptop home at night. Don't give out your cell
phone number to associates. If it is a work cell phone, turn it off, unless you are on call as part of your job function,"
Jackson advised.
No doubt the networking-systems manager spoke for many when he said his greatest
motivation comes from pride in having a hand in accomplishments such as the establishment and growth of the Internet. "This
clear contribution to society from my team's products overcomes the daily wear and tear of herding cats and overcoming office
politics," he said.
For his part, Ken Martin, the skeptical Silicon Valley blogger, is stoking optimism
by taking a long view. Silicon Valley may be getting squeezed, but the industry still holds promise.
"I am learning to speak a little Chinese," Martin says in Mandarin over his latte.
For the last nine months he has been listening to language CDs on his 30-minute commute between Los Altos and Fremont.
"Rather than surf the radio, I thought it would be better to learn Chinese," he said,
looking East with a slight smile. "I've got a long way to go before it's useful on the subway in Shanghai," he confessed.
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We will see if the web site traffic picks up after this article hits the streets...
