Working in Electronics/Electronics-related fields: Perfomance & Expectations.

I struggled with how to respond to your story.

I am retired but was drawn into your scenario with some empathy.

One of the difficulties you are describing is expectations. Your employers expectations and your expectations. If expectation are not defined but assumed it can be very frustrating for both parties. Setting expectations requires discussion.

When assigned a task what is expected? "The task needs to be done in three days." Maybe that is reasonable, if all the materials needed to complete the job are available. If the materials are not available then expectation need to be adjusted. When a task is assigned both sides need to clearly understand their expectation.

Now this doesn't avoid conflict when tasks schedules are not met. A reasonable person will understand expectation. "Yes, we agreed to that schedule but the parts to complete the task didn't arrive on time. Can't build it if you don't have the parts." The unreasonable person will ignore the discussion and look for someone to blame.

Don't give up on the electronics industry based on these two examples.

First off the CPU job was far more complex a task for a recent graduate at the Associate degree level.  I think that the job would be difficult for an individual with either a higher degree or a greater number of years of experience.  The IOT (internship) seemed like a better fit, but converting to freelance there seemed to be a time/budget issue.  Your estimate was likely a better guess than theirs.  And working faster is not really a solution to the problem.  As a freelancer, I tend to prefer bidding jobs as a one time fee as opposed to hourly rates as I don't like to get into situations where someone will question the number of hours that a task will take (I am also retired and I work more as a hobby as opposed to making a living, so this works better for me).

These are challenging times for employers and employees.  I have hired new folks in the past, fresh out of school and with prior experience, but I felt that they needed a longer period of time to learn the ropes with a new company and also needed  a longer period of time to train in their field.  Setting short time constraints or having unrealistic expectations (too complex of task) is no way to start out a new employee.

I hope that you are able to work through these issues and find a position where they are more willing to help you continue your training through mentor-ships and a series of appropriate task and time frames.

There is always room in the industry for employees at every skill and knowledge level. As long as they have enthusiasm for the job and are willing to work.

Some positions and tasks require more extensive experience and knowledge than others, but it is up to the employer to find someone with suitable experience or train someone to successfully complete a task.

If you are trying hard and not achieving what is expected, it is at least as much because the employer did not assess your capabilities properly, or did not provide adequate training. To achieve the best results, an employer needs to make the best use of the skill sets at their disposal, including learning abilities.

Berating hard working people for not achieving some goal is a pretty unpleasant way to try to improve performance, and likely to result in high turnover, which is expensive.

Bigger companies tend to be more tolerant of a wide range of skill levels and have better processes in place to optimize at different levels since every big company must deal with a wide range of staff.

Try not to get too depressed about an employer who expects more than you can deliver, if you like electronics, you can just keep learning at every job you do and keep working towards a position you find fulfilling. Any given position can be unpleasant, but you can still learn from it and that knowledge will help you in the future.

Work is (or can be) enjoyable ideally, and it sounds like all was going well at the internship. Personally for a first job, I would have stuck with that, even at a far lower salary, than work for an individual doing freelance work. Freeelance work can come later. In a larger org they would spend the time (perhaps a year) spoon-feeding, and it's perfectly normal for a first job not to understand the project or even the bigger picture, for 6 months to a year - I certainly had little clue what the product I was working on in my first couple of jobs did, other than a very vague idea which turned out to be not entirely correct : ) since engineering topics, tools and so on are complex.

Anyway it's also very normal to switch jobs in the first few years, so there's no harm in looking elsewhere too (maybe reach out to the internship firm, or at least keep in touch with them in case something comes up).

It doesn't sound like you have any issue doing interviews and converting them into job offers, but just in case anything here helps, I'll put the link here - there's excellent commentary from many engineers in the discussion comments there too: Applying for Engineering Job Roles in COVID Times

Hang in there Diego.

Getting started professionally is the hard part, especially if you have to deal with a managerial techno-bully. A good manager would never say the things that you stated in your rant.

Most employers gauge timing and delivery with experience level.  Also be aware of cultural differences of different countries and peoples in a global workplace, some managers will behave as work coach and a life coach , while others will be less concerned of your work/life balance.

This is exciting to make your pathway the way you want it.

Employers expect concern for doing a good job, being productive and reliable, and open frank communication ( not too frank. until you know them better)

Also be aware of the back room syndrome. 

As it refers to work, a front room person interfaces with real people, customers, potential customers,  other departments in a project,, sales, application people, field techs, remote troubleshooters, quality assurance, software and tool development,, trainers, & educators, sourcing,  etc...even upper management. Is a CEO potential in your future ?

A back room person tends to focus alot more as an individual contributor delivering on their one job, Some people are made for the back room, however, unless you are a leader in your field, its a less lucrative and enviable position.

One thing to consider is being flexible in selecting the first job.

Its like buying a car, you may want a Ferrari, but with your resources you can get a used Hyundai, Ford, or Honda.

Rather than go straight to PCB design or embedded system design, consider opportunities in the field service , customer technical support, testing development, technical writing to support your designs.

Many people start this way , its quite an adventure if you get a traveling job and see the world with paid expenses and collecting a paycheck.

You dont have to do this forever, and you may find something else you really enjoy doing as well.

After a couple years, you have a new experience in your toolbelt that makes you even more valuable to an employer.

I think you were unlucky with your first job. As others have pointed out, reverse engineering a CPU is not a suitable task at your level of experience.

The reverse engineering of PCBs is the kind of job that needs a lot of experience too.

Keep looking - there are lots of interesting and decent jobs out there. Try and find a place where you will be working with a few other experienced engineers.

It will help you if you have a clear idea of what you want to be working on so you can develop your skills.

Estimating how long stuff will take is hard and bosses (and every one else) often get it wrong. Some are good at dealing with that, others less so.

If you are going to have to do a lot of hand fitting of parts to boards (or some other new thing where you need some help) then maybe try asking on forums (including this one) for tips.

Depending on the boss you coul try suggesting that an investment in decent tweezers, soldering iron and magnifier would improve your performance.

MK

Thanks for your reply!.

Yes, I understand that is the needed approach. And I've said it a couple of times. At the same time, there is some difficulty because this is a relatively "new", company. We are just 3 employees + extra staff that does some stuff elsewhere. So there doesn't seem to be specifici times at all. It's all "Have it finished soon" or "Don't waste time we need this for yesterday" but there are not any timetables or anything of the sort. Also on the materials, sometimes ideas come up or I find alternatives and we don't have them available so then he has to order them, or things like not having tools to hold or support boards so you have to use extra fingers. All that slows progress.

It's been a while since the post and I've been seeing that he mostly does it just to bother people, is my guess. The other guy, which has triple the months working there gets also asked of some insane goals. But of course, he is more vocal against it.

But yeah, communication and handling of expectations are to be expected but in this case I think it's mostly doing things and improvising with whats available.

Appreciate your reply!

The CPU job seemed complex even when he suggested it, and they were rather "simple" CPUs, as they were old or discontinued chips. But as I said, during the interview and after my questions and the first week, it really seemed like it was a guy looking for someone to teach things to and that maybe he was willing to "invest" in it, as I felt I was getting paid to learn. So I soon learned that I needed to produce stuff and be profitable and sadly, I couldn't reach that. Not under those terms at least.

For the intership guy, I looked up on freelancing websites for similar jobs or tasks just to take a guess on the price. Still, it wasn't very useful as they were engineer rates and some other strange rates or a set payment per project. I went for an hourly rate based on my previous salary as it was the only reference I had. And yes, indeed my estimate ended being close to it, even if you count the extra hours I didn't tally to the total hours. Working under him and seeing the sort of job that is being done, I still don't understand how for some of the more precise things like design or even PCB mounting is done better faster, especially with the lack of proper tools.

Your third paragraph is part of that paradox (or current paradox?) about the job landscape for people getting in recent times: Can't get a job because you don't have enough experience, can't get experience because you can't get a job. At the same time, I understand how complex it is and how many places don't have the time/resources to train new people, how things like fees and taxes come when hiring that might end up generating losses, and so on. It's not simple that much is true.

Hopefully, improvement will keep being a part of the plan!

Thanks for the reply!

Yes, I got told the same by other people as well. That even if I had taken the wrong approach at first of reading and writing too much to learn, without no tangibles done, he was aware and acknowledged my lack of programming skills and developer skills when he decided to hire me. So at the end of the day, it was a mistake on his part. That is why it surprised me and why I put the "expectations" topic over the table because if after such an process, you would expect you got hired because of something else or because it was an investment on your training, so suddenly talking about profits after only 1 month seemed strange. And after a comparison to a random guy who probably is an engineer by day and freelancer by night, then the more puzzling to me was the decision to hire unsuitable for what he needed.

It is a common aspect of both places for them to be small companies, so I understand it from a resource/time/money point of view how much of a liability a new/fresh employee can be. So I agree that bigger companies have a higher margin of error (could be wrong here) because of that wide range of staff you mention.

Thanks again, I like electronics and I hope I can keep going.

Thanks a lot for the link. I will give it a look. Would you say this can apply for someone in my position (more of a trade school degree) as it is not an engineering degree?

I guess in that incoherent mess of a rant it's not properly said but the place I am working at now is the same place I did the interships in!. Which was the strange part because as soon as september started I told him about my availability but got shot down as he wasn't hiring and then got asked to do the freelance task 3 weeks later, and then asked to hire me a week after that. I agree and I wasn't planning on going the freelance route, just took this one as it was the same intership place and a project I was familiar with. On your comments about the projects and the bigger picture, I like it to compare to many programming jobs where new hires are not expected to be profitable until 6 months or a year in. So for electronics and engineering of course it's not any different.

I try to do my best in the interviews, trying to pinpoint the right things and also asking questions as I like to know especifically what I would be doing and what a company does (and about conditions, salary, all that as it should be), I have also liked the tip from certain videos about doing your own stuff and having something to show but I haven't been able to get around doing something. Right now, as it is a contract tied to work available, it is pretty much temporary so I expect myself to be looking again sometime soon. So I'll learn and do things as much as I can!