YAJT: Anyone have a R&D EE position where you travel a decent amount?

[jmcoreymv]

I'll be graduating (eventually) with my EE degree and want to be an R&D type engineer. However, I think I'd like a position where I have to travel around once a month or so. Are there any people with jobs like this? What do you do?

 

[TuxDave]

Do you have a B.S, M.S. or Ph'D?

 

[jmcoreymv]

I should have my MS in a year.

 

[jmcoreymv]

^

 

[Rumpltzer]

You have an MS and want an R&D position? I'd be interested if that works out for you.


I'd love to have an R&D position and travel a lot. I have something more along the lines of a development position, and I hardly travel at all. It seems that you need to be here for quite a while and move more into the managerial level if you want to travel a lot.

I work in semiconductors at a very large company that makes weapons systems, ships, aircraft, avionics, satellites, etc. for "government" customers.

 

[jmcoreymv]

I don't think I'll have trouble getting an R&D position, although who knows for sure. Maybe I'm thinking more development than research in my head. I know managers travel a lot, but managing people doesn't seem like something I'd like to do.

 

[Rumpltzer]

Yeah, I'm not the managerial type at all, and I'd prefer to ultimately get myself up to one of the coveted positions where you're a highest-ranked engineer/scientist but don't manage anyone.

I came out of university research group run by a man who is very well known in the field. The work done by the group has either been setting the world records or coming back to reclaim the records for about ten years now. They're competing with companies like the one I work for now, and they're still ahead in the record books. It's also a very applied research group; they're making and inventing new compound semiconductor devices.

Of the fifteen PhDs and four post-docs who have come out of the group in the past seven years, I know of four of us who have gotten development positions. The rest took industry or circuit design jobs.

Perhaps it's different in other parts of the EE field, but the reason that I stayed for the PhD was so I could get the type of job that I have... and even so, I'm disappointed with the lack of "research" that goes on here.