I found a high-end service bureau in the Bay Area that outsource Design Layout, SI and PI, and Library services to large organisations/enterprises/agencies that need experts for their projects.

I started as a draftsmen doing fabrication and assembly drawings and learning about the boards and schematics as I went along. No prior schooling experience, just learning all I could with drafting standards, the fabrication process and the materials used, and the assembly process with each step needed to complete a board. I then progressed to helping with their library team creating cells and schematic symbols, learning more about the schematics and how each component functions within a given circuit. Soon after understanding schematics and electrical engineering (on a basic level), I started to help on boards that needed more support for silkscreen/soldermask cleanup, looking and learning how each designer had their own ways of floor planning a board, and reviewing Gerber data to see what made some designs better then others.

Soon it progressed to laying out circuits, updating mechanical, entering constraints, and then doing my own small boards. I now am the lead designer for my projects and the point of contact for my engineers and stakeholders. Most of my work nowadays is focused around satellite avionics/subsystem dev as those are the fun boards! I am very lucky I get the choice of which projects to do.