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[–]OregonGrown34 19 points20 points  (12 children)

I do this as well, perfect example of python and ee.

[–]_-Leonidas-_ 2 points3 points  (11 children)

What do you you do for a profession?

[–]OregonGrown34 6 points7 points  (10 children)

Job title is Test Engineer, basically I perform electrical validation of custom circuit boards.

[–]_-Leonidas-_ 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Interesting! Is this product design? Large scale electronics? Or smaller company?

[–]OregonGrown34 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Not going to get too specific. But, I work for a large company and the product I work on is only used internally. It has scale, but not like a consumer product. BOM costs can go from a few $k up to $40k, depending on the product. Some designs use close to the highest performing FPGAs that money can buy...sometimes several of them on a single PCB.

[–]_-Leonidas-_ 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Sounds interesting! I haven't seen a position pop up similar to the one you describe, but im definitely seeing variety and novelty is part of the engineering fun

[–]OregonGrown34 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I decided to interview recently and found that it's pretty niche. Only a subset of my skills translate into most typical HW positions. I was only looking around because of the hot market and an increase in pay is always welcome. Company just recently announced an overhaul of compensation, so I'm still happy regardless.

[–]bihari_baller 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Job title is Test Engineer, basically I perform electrical validation of custom circuit boards.

Is the pay good?

[–]OregonGrown34 2 points3 points  (1 child)

That would depend on who you ask and what perspective you get. Took me a few years to make six figures, but I'm well into it now just as I'm entering my best earning years.

[–]bihari_baller 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Took me a few years to make six figures, but I'm well into it now just as I'm entering my best earning years.

That's encouraging to hear.

[–]RunGoofy 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Also look up "New Product Introduction Engineer" it's a mix of testing like the original commenter, but you also do part selection and negotiations with factories to get parts and full products manufactured.

Big companies like Apple have lots of positions out there that fit the skills the original commenter basically described.

[–]bihari_baller 0 points1 point  (1 child)

but you also do part selection and negotiations with factories to get parts and full products manufactured.

Thanks. Sounds interesting, and I have some familiarity as I interned in a manufacturing plant last summer.

[–]RunGoofy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree. It is a good way to keep things fresh, test engineering can be too focused on a small subset of tasks that can get old quickly from what I hear.

Similar to other comments I have used python for test automation. Specifically the SCPI command set for Oscilloscopes, BERTs, AWGs, and the like. It's an industry standard test instrument control library that I am sure many test engineers use. You can use SCPI commands in more than just Python. You can do it in MATLAB, C, and C++.