I started my career as an electronics technician in the Research & Development department of an electronics company, who gave me an apprenticeship. After several years there, I moved on to a computer systems company. This is where I really found my niche, working on industrial computers for airports, cranes, tunnels, satellite ground stations, fire brigades, and a bit of aerospace. I was a systems engineer, which means I design the hardware and write the software. Some jobs were more hardware than software, and some more software than hardware. Also, quite a few of the jobs were full life cycle: design; build; write manuals then train users and technicians. I worked a lot with communications, data over phone lines, radios and all sorts. Also a lot of sensors, measuring distance, controlling displays, sounding alarms.
Theres a box which sends messages to another box. It all sounds pretty boring, and, quite frankly, it is, on the surface. But, when you design, when you make everything work in a neat and simple way… Elegance is the engineering term, for this. There is a lot of craft in software and electronics. As much as woodwork or weaving.
When working in industry, there is a pressure to complete work quickly. This may mean that research to find the best way of doing something is often not done. The mantra “if it works don’t fix it” can mean neater, more maintainable, and faster methods are not investigated. This is one of the advantages of open source software, where people take time to learn, improve and innovate, and one of the reasons I’m enjoying this project. Enjoying the research, allowing myself to go down dead ends, because you never know where they may lead.