Would you Rather Have a Job that pays alot but drains you - RF Cafe Forums

RF Cafe Forums closed its virtual doors in late 2012 mainly due to other social media platforms dominating public commenting venues. RF Cafe Forums began sometime around August of 2003 and was quite well-attended for many years. By 2012, Facebook and Twitter were overwhelmingly dominating online personal interaction, and RF Cafe Forums activity dropped off precipitously. Regardless, there are still lots of great posts in the archive that ware worth looking at. Below are the old forum threads, including responses to the original posts. Here is the full original RF Cafe Forums on Archive.org

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mshafer

Post subject: Would you Rather Have a Job that pays alot but drains you... Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 4:29 pm

Colonel

Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2005 3:49 pm

Posts: 29

Location: Overland Park, Kansas

Would you Rather Have a Job that pays alot but only takes from you and gives you little say in your future. Or a career that pays well and continually builds your skillset, knowledge base, and leadership skills where your future and direction is under your control?

I am in charge of an RF Engineering research and testing team for Sprint and have been trying for the past year or so to find individuals who have 3 to 5+ years of RF CDMA experience. (no room right now for new grads). 15+ year RF CDMA System Engineers from Nortel, Lucent, Motorola, or Samsung can command large salaries and would receive projects with $100 million impacts to the company. 15+ years and you want to stay technical and not be forced into management to grow, I have many slots for you with great salaries!

My question to the group is, most all of the folks I interview appear to mainly have done drive testing or post processing and if they had in-depth CDMA knowledge on OM's, Parameters, Algorithms, Call flow, and the like, it's not something they were able to demonstrate clearly. It seems alot of these contracting firms, regardless of your education, stick folks in drive vans or have them populate spreadsheets for clients which after 6 or 8 months, most folks' brains have gone to mush......are there any RF Engineers out there who want to research and study to the greatest detail all RF CDMA/EVDO topics for all 4 major vendors? Are there any folks who understand the intracacies of the technology so as to allow them to complete patents to help shape where CDMA/EVDO is heading in the future? Are there any RF Engineers out there who feel they know much more than their present job is asking of them? Anyone out there who wishes they had a coach instead of a boss? Anyone out there sick of traveling and staying in strange hotels? Anyone out there who loves to play cricket regularly? Anyone out there who wants a career instead of a job? Anyone out there who loved the white board sessions in Engineering school where technical topics where hotly debated and exciting results where just one great thought away? If any of you exist, I promise, I've got the greatest team waiting for you to come join them...think of this job as a permanent masters or PHD program that you get paid to complete....the learning is that continual and the environment is the perfect mixture of business results driving limitless engineering research.......please contact me directly with your resume

Edited by Kirt Blattenberger 6/13/2006

Please read the forum rules - recruiter postings not permitted.

_________________

If you love CDMA, you have to come join my team!!!!!!!

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pradeepsangwan

Post subject: Re: Would you Rather Have a Job that pays alot but drains yoPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 7:29 pm

Lieutenant

Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2006 6:41 pm

Posts: 3

Location: Arliington, Texas

mshafer wrote:

Would you Rather Have a Job that pays alot but only takes from you and gives you little say in your future. Or a career that pays well and continually builds your skillset, knowledge base, and leadership skills where your future and direction is under your control?

I am in charge of an RF Engineering research and testing team for Sprint and have been trying for the past year or so to find individuals who have 3 to 5+ years of RF CDMA experience. (no room right now for new grads). 15+ year RF CDMA System Engineers from Nortel, Lucent, Motorola, or Samsung can command large salaries and would receive projects with $100 million impacts to the company. 15+ years and you want to stay technical and not be forced into management to grow, I have many slots for you with great salaries!

My question to the group is, most all of the folks I interview appear to mainly have done drive testing or post processing and if they had in-depth CDMA knowledge on OM's, Parameters, Algorithms, Call flow, and the like, it's not something they were able to demonstrate clearly. It seems alot of these contracting firms, regardless of your education, stick folks in drive vans or have them populate spreadsheets for clients which after 6 or 8 months, most folks' brains have gone to mush......are there any RF Engineers out there who want to research and study to the greatest detail all RF CDMA/EVDO topics for all 4 major vendors? Are there any folks who understand the intracacies of the technology so as to allow them to complete patents to help shape where CDMA/EVDO is heading in the future? Are there any RF Engineers out there who feel they know much more than their present job is asking of them? Anyone out there who wishes they had a coach instead of a boss? Anyone out there sick of traveling and staying in strange hotels? Anyone out there who loves to play cricket regularly? Anyone out there who wants a career instead of a job? Anyone out there who loved the white board sessions in Engineering school where technical topics where hotly debated and exciting results where just one great thought away? If any of you exist, I promise, I've got the greatest team waiting for you to come join them...think of this job as a permanent masters or PHD program that you get paid to complete....the learning is that continual and the environment is the perfect mixture of business results driving limitless engineering research.......please contact me directly with your resume

I think the problem, here, Mr. shafer is that fresh graduates (MSEE or BSEE) are so sick of studying tht they just want to jump in the job wagon and earn whatever they can doing what they can call an ENGINEERING job. I can vouch for what I said as I recently graduated in May and can vividly recall every night spent awake preparing for a project or a test every other day. Although I enjoyed doing it for the past 6-7 years, thoughts like "When's it all going to end?" do creep your mind every now and then.

The problem,in my opinion, with people who've been working for a while is that they find themselves in strange waters if they are required to study 15 hrs a week on new technologies. I think there are very few motivated people out there.

This might sound out of context but since we're talking about it, lemme add that grad schools don't prepare you for the REAL WORLD at all. There's no emphasis on what's required in the industry. With 3 hrs a week schedule the most they can do is to introduce the students to the peripheries of the RF world. I agree that its your own motivation that drives you but I think the professors should atleast tell the class (maybe in the last lecture) what is that employers would be looking out for when they see a mention of the course in their Resume.

I don't know if you remember Mr. Shafer but you recently interviewed me a couple of weeks back and I think if I had some kind of an orientation before that as to how to go about it and what kind of answers employers look for, I'd have faired much better in the interview. I'm saying all this because I felt sad after the interview because there's much more that I knew but just couldn't convince you that I do. Maybe it's because that was my very first job interview but then I'd still suggest (if anybody is listening) that the Professors spend atleast half an hour in a semester to orient the students towards the industry.

I feel lucky that I finally found a place to converse with peers as well as seniors like you (thanks to you as you mentioned it). If only could find it on my own, I'd have made a better impression on you by reading the books you mentioned and other things. LOL

BTW apart from other things I LOVE playing cricket and regardless of you hiring me or not , I'm gonna come to Kansas some day and beat you in a game of cricket. That ways I'd be able to set an example that a 20+ year experience RF Engineer is not always better than a fresher in everything. So if u're wanting to strengthen your team in cricket too, you know what to do.

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remember_the_rf_engineer

Post subject: Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 10:12 pm

Lieutenant

Joined: Thu May 25, 2006 1:18 am

Posts: 4

Mr Shafer,

It is really nice to read this encouraging mail specially for fresh graduates.

If there is a working environment like this, surely that's the best place to work at.

I would like to discuss some things mentioned in the mail:

a. True, in most places, there are drive-testers.

b. The situation in real wireless life is pretty different than in an university...

There are sound graduates in wireless. But they dont have the idea of real time network, switch commands and codes....

They know what type of modulation is involved, but they dont have network-simulators to see what parameters need to be changed....

c. Even for working professionals -

Incidentally in contemporay firms, a lot is said about cost-savings.

" Money is everything..."

In that scenario, business personnels tend to forget that training is an important part of job..

Example.. to get training costs big money... and even if I were a manager or CEO(which I am not...), I would have preferred to save that money....

And in this cost-conscious market, it's not easy to find the sound talent in any field.

d. RF Industry - QUERY:

In any RF environment, what is the scope of growth for any professional , other than working in Excel & macros.

I do agree with you its difficult to find self-motivated personnels.. who not only believe in working 8-5 & completing reports , but also have a zeal to grow for themselves.. for their firm...

Thank You,

Posted  11/12/2012