Advice for grads
Q. Dear Mark. I just got my degree in a wireless related field. Now what?
A. (From Mark van der Hoek, Senior RF Engineer)
Congratulations. You're now in an interesting business with great potential. The industry is slowly beginning to recover from a deep slump, and your job prospects are better now than they were a year ago.
There are three main types of employers in the cellular industry:
1. The carriers, like Sprint, Verizon, or Cingular. These are stable jobs (well, except for Sprint -- they lay off, re-hire, lay off, re-hire, repeat.) and decent pay, with good training for the most part.
2. The vendors, the people that supply equipment, like Nortel, Lucent, Ericsson, and so on. Depending on what part of their company you work for, the jobs are stable or not. Some of the vendor's people do a lot of traveling from project to project. Good pay, lots of long hours, and no home life. If you're in their R&D or manufacturing side, then it's stable and decent pay.
3. Consulting firms. These range from large companies with over 1000 engineers, to Mom & Pop shops with just a few engineers. Decent pay, but probably not as good as choice number 1 or 2. Oh, lots of travel, and no home life. Training is minimal, mostly on the job. This used to be where the big bucks could be made. NOT ANYMORE. But if you like to travel, this is the life for you. Warning: It can be difficult to get out of this into working for a carrier or vendor. Make a firm decision beforehand to get into consulting, get some experience, make contacts, and then get out. People tend to get trapped in the consulting world.