engineer

[goodthing]

Do you have to be smart to be a ate test engineer?

 

[tfinch2]

You ate the test engineer?

 

[Matthiasa]

Anything dealing with engineering you can't be that stupid to do...
That said the ones doing testing of parts tend to be lower down.

 

[BEL6772]

Being able to quickly learn and then apply the knowledge you've gained is important.

How smart you have to be depends somewhat on who you work for. Some places will have short design cycles, good processes, and relatively easy access to the designers. I think that those conditions would make the ATE engineer job easier.

If you land a project that has little (or no) design support and poor documentation, You've gotta be pretty clever to reverse-engineer the widget, fill in the blanks, and successfully build a test suite for it.

In any case, you've got to be at least smart enough to get a 4-year engineering degree.

 

[Printer Bandit]

anything automated can't be that hard.

 

[zinfamous]

you probably shouldn't eat the engineers if you want to be one.

though, maybe that's one way in?

I dunno.

:hmm:

 

[JimmiG]

You ate the test engineer?

That's what I thought too, especially since this thread was right above the "Would you eat human flesh to survive?"-thread

 

[cKGunslinger]

Do you have to be smart to be a ate test engineer?

Smart? No.
Tasty? Yes.

 

[bignateyk]

This is the first time I've seen someone stutter over the internet.

 

[Farmer]

I love it.

 

[goodthing]

Some of These replies made me laugh out loud:sneaky: but, seriously ... Ate test engineers write the test programs.From what I understand(and that is all I understand) they don't aucually work on the automated machines that's a different job ... So does designin/writing the test programs for ate take talent?

 

[bignateyk]

Some of These replies made me laugh out loud:sneaky: but, seriously ... Ate test engineers write the test programs.From what I understand(and that is all I understand) they don't aucually work on the automated machines that's a different job ... So does designin/writing the test programs for ate take talent?

I applied for a couple test engineer jobs a while back, but turned them all down because they seem to pay much less money than design engineers. This being the case, they probably have lower standards for applicants.

 

[Gibson486]

As with any job, it's not smarts, but competence. I have limited experience in ATE testing. It was more of adjusting test scripts to characterize your products correctly.

 

[goodthing]

I applied for a couple test engineer jobs a while back, but turned them all down because they seem to pay much less money than design engineers. This being the case, they probably have lower standards for applicants.

What exactly makes a design engineer superior?

 

[bignateyk]

What exactly makes a design engineer superior?

Beats me. I guess they figure it's harder to design something than it is to test something that someone else designed?

 

[davmat787]

I was a Software Test Engineer (STE) / Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET) for over ten years here in WA state. What specifically do you want to know? What type of software would you be working with? Any coding skills will put you at the front of the pack in my experience.

 

[davmat787]

Beats me. I guess they figure it's harder to design something than it is to test something that someone else designed?

Larger software companies will have engineers who code test tools, kind of a mix between a design engineer and test engineer.

 

[Kadarin]

What exactly makes a design engineer superior?

You can't be that superior if you allowed yourself to get eaten.

 

[goodthing]

I was a Software Test Engineer (STE) / Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET) for over ten years here in WA state. What specifically do you want to know? What type of software would you be working with? Any coding skills will put you at the front of the pack in my experience.

if you are at the top of your field ,lets say in ASIC design and another person is equally successful and experienced in test,delopment, writing,failure analysis is the deign skill set more complicated,specialized,important? Is there more opportunities in design?

 

[gophins72]

if you are at the top of your field ,lets say in ASIC design and another person is equally successful and experienced in test,delopment, writing,failure analysis is the deign skill set more complicated,specialized,important? Is there more opportunities in design?

depends, do you want to be a good engineer or a good manager?

 

[davmat787]

if you are at the top of your field ,lets say in ASIC design and another person is equally successful and experienced in test,delopment, writing,failure analysis is the deign skill set more complicated,specialized,important? Is there more opportunities in design?

Hard to say. The skillset to design ASIC's is harder to come by than what comprises software testing. However, any worthwhile software/hardware company will have 3-5, maybe more, for each designer or developer. Not sure how it is for other software companies, but the test group has the ultimate say in a components quality. We literally had to sign off on what we owned that it is ready to ship, designers and developers do not. Also, a great tester will be able to design as well. For example I wrote a test harness/wrapper that automated the automated test tools for my 200+ machine lab. The wrapper automated the execution of all the various automated test tools, parsed the logs, injected the results to a SQL DB, and had a web front to generate those pretty reports and pie charts that upper management loves. I love the freedom that software testing provided, very easy to differentiate yourself, and you get to work with incredibly smart developers and pick their brains.

Not sure if this answers your question, but there are design opportunities in test. Straight software designers, in my XP, author the high level conceptual stuff of how a given software program will work. Under that the developers implement that vision. Ultimately it will come down to how each company defines software testing, design, and development.

 

[goodthing]

depends, do you want to be a good engineer or a good manager?

I dunno, just a challenging career path. Right now there are a lot of opportunities on the manufacturing side of engineering.I am starting an internship at Cisco in development and test.I will soon have a degree in electric engineering

 

[Farmer]

I dunno, just a challenging career path. Right now there are a lot of opportunities on the manufacturing side of engineering.I am starting an internship at Cisco in development and test.I will soon have a degree in electric engineering

Yeah but you ate him, how could you do that?

 

[gophins72]

I dunno, just a challenging career path. Right now there are a lot of opportunities on the manufacturing side of engineering.I am starting an internship at Cisco in development and test.I will soon have a degree in electric engineering

it's hard to say, it depends on what you enjoy doing. there are fewer good design jobs as compared to good test/manufacturing jobs.

this may be controversial but meh, it's an opinion: if you are exceptional/top-of-the field in both, you probably have more opportunities in design but if you are mediocre, then the sheer number of test/manufacturing jobs will serve you well. having said that, if you are exceptional and have drive/work ethic, dont go to a big company, go to a small company (for design or test/manufacturing) in silicon valley for 5-10 years and roll the dice, worst case is you can then go to the big company.