Hi, currently I am a fresh graduate seeking on job, I had went for a few interview and today one of the company had offer me a position of process engineer, however the job offered is not the initial position that i apply for (R & D engineer). The reason that i got the offer is due to their company are eagerly need people on the department and during the interview the interviwer are keep persuading that I should go into Process Engineer instead of R & D Engineer.

They keep mentioned about how wonderful that being a process engineer, as Process Engineer will need to take in charge whole production line, testing, QA, deal with customer , paperwork, blablabla (I cant remember all the "benefit" they mentioned). So for a fresh graduate as me, is a good chance for me to explore and know more about it, instead of directly go into R & D field. By the way, the company is Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) based, it help other branded computer peripheral device company make product, however for the branch, there are more concern about manufacture instead of R&D.

So now, the problem that I met is, as a electronic engineering student which interested on semiconductor field / programming, should I accept the job offer ? cos from the job scope, there seem less related to my field, (although the product they manufacture are related to electronic), will it affected my future career prospect?my first ideal job is R & D field, I keen on learning new technology stuff, will it affected me when I try to job hopping on next time ? Will it limited the field that I can work with ?

Let said if I work at there for 1 or 2 year, then find another job in other company (let said: INTEL, Motorola) for the position of R & D related, will it be an obstacle for me to apply?

And they mentioned about that as a process engineer, it is a COMPULSARY to standby 24hr, in case anything wrong with the line, then need to be called back, is it a common situation for Process Engineer ?

If you have worked in production for 1 to 2 years, it's rather hard (I wouldn't say it's impossible). People will not likely to hire you with experienced level pay with different kind of experience. It's hard to get an interview let alone an offer if your resume documents your experience in production/process but you are applying more technical driven job functions, like R&D.

Just to tell you the truth, with a bachelor's degree and 0 experience, even if you secure a job in R&D, it will be not really that kind R&D you were dreaming about. You will be mostly do a lot of test and measurements, troubleshooting and the most is fine-tuning or optimization based on an existing reference design and back-end development activities supporting the real design engineers overseas. Based on what I have seen so far, in semiconductor industry, designing from scratch or prototype definition are mostly done by people with more than 8 to 10 years experience or with PhD degree.


YES.

This post has been edited by TYK: Jul 29 2006, 02:24 AM

So does it mean that in real life, Process Engineer doesn't involve much technical stuff ? But I heard from the interviewer that Process Engineer actually got involve a bit in technical, as the job task is in charge of process, once product met a problem in production line, they need to co-operate with Test Engineer/ Customer to figure out where the problem is, is it true for Process Engineer ?
For me, doing testing, troubleshooting, measurements,etc job task is ok for me, as long as it is benfit for me in the R & D field, I don't mind learn it all from the bottom, as long as it can help me to build up a strong basic on the practical knowledge.

Does it mean that for position of Test Engineer, the job task is related with R & D ? Let said, with the exp of Test Engineer, will it bring me a key to enter R & D related job task in future ?

Another Question: If I wanted to go into R & D / Design field, which job tittle are related to it ? which mean with the exp of that job, it is possible for me to go into R & D field.

Test Engineer ? QC Engineer ? _______ Engineer ?

Process people usually deals with mass production processes and thus most of the time you will find yourself working with operator/human related issues. The technical knowledge involved in process may or may not related to R&D, depends on the company's business nature.

Test engineer are people who take care of the testers, and testing operations in production line. They are aslo skilled with test script/test programming debugging. It's very hard to say whether it will lead you to R&D, as it will depends on your work experience and skills, as an individual.

Again, it depends on the company, most of them have a very generic name, just R&D engineer.

In semiconductor/chip maker business, job titles CONSIDERED R&D are like circuit design, IC layout, development or something like that.

This post has been edited by TYK: Jul 30 2006, 12:49 AM

currently got another offer from another company, is the test position, using Agilent 3070 tester mainly, need to deal with several things ( i cant remember all, got mentioned about BOM). However, for that position, i now still pending on decide, cos I havnt attend any IC design, layout , development position yet, all in process, wondere whether should I accept it while waiting.
Is it in the industry of semiconductor, the knowledge of Agilent 3070 also being used ? if not, is there any other related skill are being required to be have in semiconductor field ? What skill or knowledge are oftenly being required in order to fulfiled the position (design, layout, development?)

In semiconductor business, more than one type of tester platforms are being used, and it depends also on which stage in the manufacturing pipepline. I am not from test background, so it's hard for me to say what kind of job prospect you have if you possess 3070's knowledge.

Employer usually will hire people with directly related experience if they are not fresh graduate. Say, a company is hiring RF system design engineer in radio front-end circuit design, certainly they won't hire people with experience in mass production's tester operation or quality control engineering.