|
Principal Software Engineer |
Q:
What is your job title?
A: Software Engineer. I'm
not sure what my particular title is at Tenor, in my last job I was
called a "Principal Software Engineer".
top
Q:
Please give a brief description of your job, specifying what you
do
each day.
A:I write software at Tenor
Networks. I work in a group that writes the lowest level of
software that interacts with hardware. I don't do the same
thing every day but work on projects. For example we just
finished debugging a new piece of hardware. An electrical
engineer designs a computer "board". That is an integrated
circuit board that contains many computer componets, and a processor
or CPU. I write software to run on that processor that makes
the hardware do a specific function. The hardware I work on at
Tenor takes internet fiber optic cables in, looks at the data on the
cables, and decides where to send out the data. It is like a
telephone directory. You send your email to someone, and you
don't have to know what computer they use to connect to the internet.
The computer looks the email address up in a telephone directory to
see how to send it. Your email goes through something like Tenor
hardware, that figures out what cable your email needs to travel on,
then sends the email to the correct place. I write software in the
"C" language. I get or write a specification saying exactly
what the hardware needs to do, organize the tasks into software
programs, then write and debug the programs.
During a typical day I spend about half
my time in my office writing or building C programs. I spend
the other half of my day in a hardware lab where I actually hook up
fiber optic cables to hardware, send test data through the system and
watch how it behaves. I'm lucky in that I don't go to many meetings,
I actually can do engineering most of the time. My group meets
with our manager for about 2 hours a week to discuss how we are doing
and the status of all our projects.
top
Q:
What have you been working on or teaching lately?
A:I am just finishing debugging
a board that supports 16 OC-16 fiber optic connections. That
means you can plug 16 different fiber optic cables into the board,
with each cable sending and receiving different data at the same
time. You can put up to 12 of these boards in a system. We hope to
sell this to internet service providers like Verizon or AT&T.
top
Q:
What most interest you in your job?
A:That I never do the same
thing twice. Each project is different, and I don't have to do
the same thing all the time. I enjoy working with the hardware
and actually writing software that lights lights, draws graphics, or
allows actual physical things to happen with hardware.
top
Q:
What do you like the least about your job?
A:Having to do schedules and
predict how long it will take to do projects.
top
Q:
What has your career path been?
A:I have been doing low level
hardware programming since 1979. I have a BS degree in computer
science from Rochester Institute of Technology, in Rochester NY. I've
been doing very similar types of programming since I graduated from
college. I spent many years working in computer graphics, then
went to work on Pre-Press Printing machines for Kodak used by
newspapers. After that I worked
for a few companies that made computers to sell to other companies,
that would in turn make them into products. For example at
Mercury computers we made hardware that we sold to GE. GE then
built that hardware into CAT scanners for hospitals. I've been at
Tenor 2 years, this is my first job working in networking.
top
Q:
Was there any person who inspired you to do what you're doing
today?
A:I really enjoyed math in
school, and my high school math teacher encouraged me to go into
computers.
top
Q:
What attracted you to this career when you were in high school?
A:It involved math and logic,
but also sounded fun. My high school had a concept they called
"work-study". When I said I was interested in computers, they
arranged for me to get an internship at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy where I grew up. I wasn't paid, but instead
of going to high school I went to RPI for 4 days a week, where they
taught me computer programming and how to use a computer. This
was in 1974 when computers filled a whole room and needed special air
conditioning and floors. It was not easy for a high school
student to get access to a computer.
top
Q:
What careers in your field do you see as promising for the
future?
A:I think there are many
promising fields in software engineering. There will always be
fun things to do programming new and different hardware. There
are computers in everything from scooters to TV cameras. Find
an area that you're interested in (medicine, biology, entertainment,
video games, internet, etc) and you can be sure there are programming
jobs in that field. In the future we will depend even more on
computers embedded in our appliances and every day life. Software is
very flexible. I've been able to work part-time at some very
interesting jobs. Engineering pays well, and there is a lot of
freedom. No one cares when I get in to work, or when I
leave. I just have to get my job done. So I am responsible for
doing what I promised, and I have to talk to other folks, get any
tools I need and organize myself. Sometimes I work on a group
project where 2-8 engineers all build pieces of a big program.
top
Q:
What advice do you have for young women who want to work in your
field
someday?
A:Take lots of math and
science. Try some programming classes in high school and see if
you like the logical thinking involved. We are fortunate to
live in an area with many jobs involving software. If you think
you are interested in software try to get a summer job or internship
at a local company and see if you really like engineering.
top
|
|
|
|