The Plight of a Hardware Engineer

I always believed that a Hardware Engineer’s job is very demanding. As a Hardware Engineer, I find my job really challenging. But even more challenging is explaining the nuances of the job to the “not so technically literate”.

People (of the “not so technically literate” breed) feign to understand the concept of software. Each of them knows of some Software Engineer, either in India or in the U.S. Some of them are even aware of the Terminology. They make it a point to utter words like Java, Oracle, SAP, etc when you have a discussion with them. They all have scores of success stories of people in the Software domain. As a Hardware engineer, you’ll have to deal with species of this breed quite regularly. A few days back, I had a talk with my neighbour, and this is how it went.

Neighbour (N): Hey Sumanth, what do you do?
Me (S): I’m a Hardware Engineer

N: So, what do you do? Do you repair Computers?
S (After a long pause): Not exactly. I’m into writing Hardware.

N: What’s that?
S: I’m into Chip design and verification. I write codes to implement the Hardware and verify it.

N: Now, what’s a Chip?
S: Long long ago……………………………..
N: ??????????


N (a little disdainfully): Oh, so you are not into Software?
S: Yes.

N: Why don’t you make a career shift? I heard companies like Infosys are recruiting a lot.
S: I want to be in this field only. I want to be called a Hardware Engineer.

After this conversation, I felt like calling myself a “Software Engineer”. After all, that’s what I do, more or less. But then, I thought, I’ll not succumb to the pressure. I had some discussions on this with my friends in the same domain. One of my friends came up with his own experience. He had a chat with someone in his village which went on something like this

Villager (V): Hey man, what do you do?
My Friend (F): I’m a Hardware Engineer

V: I thought you did some M.Tech or something like that
F: Yes, you are correct

V: What happened then? You didn’t get a job in Infosys or Tcs?
F: Why? Can’t I work in a U.S based Hardware Company?

V: Ok Leave it. What do you do in this job? Do you supply Hardware to the Shops made by your company?

It took some time for my friend to realize that the Villager only knows of Hardware as in ‘Hardware and Sanitary’.

I started analyzing the cause for such a discussion. I was desperate not to get into such discussions again. The result of the post-mortem turned out to be the first dialogue (getting introduced as a Hardware Engineer). This was probably the reason in both the cases. Maybe, it is in the title that makes people feel that a Hardware engineer is someone who works with wires (as in my case) or something more unrelated (as in the case of my friend). Also, Hardware engineers are a rare breed. People know of a Software engineer, but they rarely know of a Hardware Engineer.

After much thought on this, I decided I would call myself an ASIC design engineer. This is atleast not creating a wrong notion. People will not get any information from this title (that’s a much better situation) whatsoever. People will atleast bother to ask me what an ASIC is, instead of making some unknown assumptions (as in the case of the villager). Above all, this title somehow sounds better than "Software Engineer" to my ears.