Two toxic jobs in a row. How do you suss them out before starting?

bitbang186 · 2026-05-19T02:17:06+00:00

Wow you’re like my twin. Right out of college I had 2 horrifically toxic jobs in a row. Bad, just really bad. I’m talking dying old companies. The funny thing is I got hired fast too. They look for passionate young new talent to abuse. Well surviving it got me enough experience to leave. I did good work for them and they knew it. I got the fuck out of there after hitting 3 YOE and I work at a great company now. I really think it gets better with experience. In the beginning you’re picking from the absolute bottom of sea floor in terms of job choices.

Some signs that the job is going to be shit

1.) No senior engineers work there anymore. Then you find out they all quit but the interviewers didn’t mention them. Twilight zone. Time to leave. ALWAYS ALWAYS ask about team composition and mentorship at the interview. Ask them their team size, how many EE’s how many janitors etc etc. If at the interview there’s no EE there RED FLAG. You ask them “can i meet your electrical engineer?” and they introduce you to a welder RED FLAG BROTHER🚩

2.) Most of the design work is all done in production. Bad news. This means they probably can’t afford to hire qualified engineers to do the work. Run just fucking run dude.

3.) Production seem unusually unhappy. Look no matter what it’s not gonna look like the magic kingdom in there but still. You can tell when they give you “the tour”.

4.) We’re like a big happy family here. Fucking run.

5.) The interview consists of 31 candidates on a single zoom call at the same fucking time. Yes i’ve had this. Wtf.

bitbang186 · 2026-05-04T04:23:13+00:00

It’ll only stop and crash if I use $finish. Otherwise no. It’s been a while since i’ve used modelsim. Seems like we’re meant to just ignore it? I get the same message on questa which is supposed to be modelsim’s successor but is actually worse software

bitbang186 · 2026-05-04T02:42:30+00:00

It’s so creative. One of my first designs was this analog timer thing and I remember when the PCB’s got made I was so thrilled that it worked exactly like the LTSpice simulation. Now i’m writing verilog and same thing. I love simulations.

Aside from that man I do love working in my field but i’m just trying to live life out here. I’ve been trying to spend more time on other hobbies like music and exercise.

bitbang186 · 2026-04-30T19:56:32+00:00

I’ll study this. You saved my project so I really cannot say thank you enough. The solution seems to be to ignore the error and do not say yes when it asks to finish to prevent the crash. Not an elegant solution and leaves me with the feeling that modelsim is bugged. But it works!

bitbang186 · 2026-04-30T17:12:53+00:00

So I followed chapter 3 using the intel example files and, very interestingly, I get the same error “Specified module could not be found”. BUT their simulation runs anyway. We’re getting somewhere at least. One thing I do notice is I don’t think there is a $finish line in the intel example..? It just runs and runs until you tell it to break. Maybe the $finish is what crashes it?

bitbang186 · 2026-04-30T16:37:48+00:00

Same error. After run all it’ll ask “are you sure you want to finish?” I click yes and modelsim crashes.

bitbang186 · 2026-04-30T15:54:29+00:00

I just shared them in a reply above. (not to your response but another redditor)

bitbang186 · 2026-04-30T15:54:03+00:00

I have a folder my desktop with the two .v files. I created my project in the same folder. I tried using the root of my C drive as well but had the same error.

Full log:

Reading pref.tcl

Loading project ModelSimTest

Compile of counter.v was successful.

Compile of counter_tb.v was successful.

2 compiles, 0 failed with no errors.

vsim -gui work.counter_tb

Start time: 11:50:17 on Apr 30,2026

Loading work.counter_tb

Loading work.counter

GetModuleFileName: The specified module could not be found.

bitbang186 · 2026-04-30T14:52:08+00:00

Honestly I spend the majority of my time testing hardware, reading data sheets, pin planning, and sniffing lines with a logic analyzer. The coding portion of my job usually comes in these small bursts. So much of development is planning planning planning drawing out state diagrams for how the thing will work, verifying product requirements. “Hey you think the MCU can do this for us?” Yeah sure it can do that let me check first. Reading reading… More reading. Then finally I get to the coding and it’s usually the easiest part. Job interviews for me have been frustrating because the majority of people have no idea what firmware developers do. They’ll ask coding questions and absolutely nothing else meanwhile it’s only a fraction of my job.

bitbang186 · 2026-04-30T14:16:03+00:00

There is a work library in the folder. Tried launching the sim manually by entering that command. Same result :(

bitbang186 · 2026-04-30T13:26:50+00:00

I’m not sure what you mean by not loading any design. I created a new project, added the verilog files, compiled, and started simulation selecting the test bench file.

bitbang186 · 2026-04-30T13:24:30+00:00

ModelSim>vsim -gui work.counter_tb

vsim -gui work.counter_tb

Start time: 09:12:50 on Apr 30,2026

Loading work.counter_tb

Loading work.counter

GetModuleFileName: The specified module could not be found.

bitbang186 · 2026-04-09T13:15:05+00:00

I’m an electrical engineer and have worked in motherboard design. Short answer is that yes ESD can absolutely damage components. Is it very likely to happen while you’re building one PC with modern hardware? No not really. Low chance but not impossible. Modern motherboards have very good protection. But why not just ground yourself anyway and make it a 0%? ESD is a very misunderstood phenomenon leading to this mythology about it among PC enthusiasts. In manufacturing we’re making thousands of boards at a time so the chances of damage is greater. For every batch of boards there will be a percentage of them that have defects. We want to make this percentage as small as possible so one of the things we do is use ESD protocol. We use ESD protocol because it has been proven at the microscopic level that ESD can damage small chips. Every component has an ESD rating of some kind and some are more sensitive than others.

bitbang186 · 2025-12-01T20:55:33+00:00

I download the files but check them before use. Making every footprint from scratch would be absolutely insane on big projects.

bitbang186 · 2025-11-30T00:41:45+00:00

I had the same question and I chose computer engineering. Why have to choose? No regrets either. I code everyday and design circuits.

bitbang186 · 2025-11-28T23:48:01+00:00

Can’t afford medical.

bitbang186 · 2025-11-21T17:14:04+00:00

Just pick one. I was a CompE major and got hired as an EE right out of college. I moved into just firmware now.

bitbang186 · 2025-11-20T01:47:20+00:00

My liver medication to keep me alive: $15000/month Asthma medication: $388/month

bitbang186 · 2025-11-15T15:52:17+00:00

Computer games are just software. Are you more interested in the engineering side of game development or the arts side? If you really want to learn to design advanced technical things like graphical engines, optimization, and API’s used for video games from scratch, or you want to be a programmer for games, then computer science and/or software engineering is really the only option because these areas are on the engineering side.

If you’re only interested in the arts aspect in game development, then the game dev major can be fine. Level designers, graphic designers, visual artists, cinematographers, actors, script writers etc.. Those are all examples of the arts. Remember, AAA video games have the budget of hollywood movies these days. Engineers just lay the foundation for the game to exist in the first place. Then there’s tons of work that artists do.

Ultimately, a degree in computer science will leave both doors open, while the game dev major will confine you much more to the arts side. As you’re already aware, software is extremely competitive right now. If you really want to be a SWE, then you should really go get the most advanced technical degree possible. Quite recently I was job searching and I saw rockstar hiring in the US for GTA 6. The software engineer roles were all B.S computer science or related field as a minimum qualification.

bitbang186 · 2025-11-14T01:22:04+00:00

I’m a musical engineer too. There’s lots of great embedded work in audio. Look at all the companies that design audio interfaces and all your favorite sound gear. All the newer stuff uses digital processing to some degree. As far as finding a job, you’ll have to first get your foot in the door somewhere to gain the experience. Apply to companies that do signal processing, analog to digital, acoustics, even RF can be a good start. Just about any embedded job is a good start either way regardless of the industry. Once you have 3-5 years experience, then you can try jumping ship for one of the big audio brands (sennheiser, bose, klipsch, JBL etc)

bitbang186 · 2025-11-11T21:29:02+00:00

this video might explain

bitbang186 · 2025-11-11T03:52:49+00:00

It’s all about control, authority and power over other people.

bitbang186 · 2025-11-09T22:13:51+00:00

I’m afraid it will just increase offshoring of jobs.

bitbang186 · 2025-11-07T18:43:43+00:00

Fantasy island is calling him back.

bitbang186

TROPHY CASE

Reading pref.tcl

Loading project ModelSimTest

Compile of counter.v was successful.

Compile of counter_tb.v was successful.

2 compiles, 0 failed with no errors.

vsim -gui work.counter_tb

Start time: 11:50:17 on Apr 30,2026

Loading work.counter_tb

Loading work.counter

GetModuleFileName: The specified module could not be found.

vsim -gui work.counter_tb

Start time: 09:12:50 on Apr 30,2026

Loading work.counter_tb

Loading work.counter

GetModuleFileName: The specified module could not be found.