Industry Expert Interview

First time using a title on this thing, feels like I missed something. On the matter of missing things, when the assignment prompt for this mentioned "Inserting this into the learning Journal", I wasn't completely sure as to whether this is meant to be a part of this weeks weekly post, or its own separate thing. I've already made a note to myself to mention this post in that post when I write it. 

As for the Interview itself, the prompt in question was to get in touch with someone in an industry of or relating to computer science. Having had some difficulty figuring out networking in general, I didn't have a particularly great time getting in touch with an expert, outside of my father. Turning to family isn't ideal, given the networking aspect intended, but I didn't have much other options that I could reasonably count on. 

Mark, an engineering manager at Atlona Inc., began our conversation on his career path with his start as an equipment designer. Specifically, the equipment he designed was intended to test printed circuit boards(PCBs) that went into televisions. As an individual contributor, or someone who contributes to or performs tasks relating to a given project without managing or supervising others. He would move into a role of specifying the testing methods and specifications after discovering that the old method lacked proper specification. The discovery was enough to push the designs forward 10 years! Moving from a production side role to one in design, he would maintain his individual contributor title, even as he supported a relationship between his company and other companies and design houses. Moving up the design chain through a startup and into an established CPU/GPU Company, he found that in both places the bottleneck in the projects he worked on was more often the software side of matters. The big challenge here was keeping everyone up to speed with changes being made to the project, which, be spread across several companies, wasn't the easiest thing in the world. Then the last he worked, that he was willing to divulge about, was a company that made video distribution hardware where he still was an individual contributor. Whilst there, he discovered that the program managers weren't specifying the designs the were looking for, and, thus, the hardware wasn't properly tested. It ended up with him writing a basic specification and test requirements to cover the hardware used and ensure said hardware was properly tested.

Mark put plenty of emphasis on the need for proper documentation and communication. From schedules to know when things are to happen. Specifications for the designers and testers so they know what to design and test respectively(he had a few stories of the things that sometimes end up on them). Documentations of test results to allow approval. Relationships with relevant companies and shipping costs. All the crucial information should be documented to ensure everyone knows what's going on and so that, when something goes wrong, they can discover it quickly. Being able to keep a tabs on documentation and schedules is a very important skill in his line of work. Being able to turn task requirements into hard specifications was also a big one, particularly the "hand-waving" ones. According to Mark, a 'hand-waving' requirement is a requirement that's mentioned with the assumption that the specifics of it will be worked out later. Whether that meant he was figuring out the specifics there or simply making notes for future discussion is something I wish I'd asked him. The last big ticket skill he went over was being able to create and maintain productive working relationships with others. Whether it's you coworkers in the cubicles or representatives from interested parties from around the globe, one will almost constantly be working with others. Being able to host constructive conversations will not only help maintain one's role as an employee, but will also make it easier to transition from job to job if needs be. Especially so, in today's world where AI is taking center stage and most conversations where '8K' resolutions are the common topic of choice in video markets. 

I closed our conversation by asking him what advice he would give to, not so much me, but any student looking to enter the industry. He responded with, "Understand the bigger picture - not only with what you're tasked with, but how it affects the final product and the overall performance of the company." 

I wasn't expecting Mark to have remained an individual contributor despite his title of manager. That in mind, it is an interesting thought that he would remain out of managerial roles despite the contributions to ensuring that everything was running as it should. Regardless, the fact that most of the work is either the technical work that goes into the product or the organizational skills that enable it does give me a clear idea as to where my focus should be while studying at CSUMB. If the organizational stuff is as important as the technical stuff, it seems very prudent to take the time to improve my own note-taking and organization, knowing that it's just as important. If not to keep myself working smoothly, to figure out how an AI performs the task.