Three positions opened at Parallax + PCB design contract opportunities
Ken Gracey
Posts: 7,392
Hey there!
Tomorrow we will be posting two more positions, bringing it to three total open positions:
The reason I'm writing this message is because the position currently defined as Electronics Engineer is already loaded with excess demand. With Daniel on the FPGA project, Chip on P2, Jeff on tools, Chris on maintenance and support, David on several PCBs, and the additional EE we will still be unable to meet our design needs.
We have charted several products that we need to bring to market. Examples include a Propeller Flight Controller for use with the ELEV-8 V2 and our in-development UAV educational program, revisions to several popular Parallax products like the Board of Education USB, a dual 12V H-bridge, etc. In total we're backlogged with at least a dozen critical designs.
We have found that our best products are usually run by one engineer, from design through production. Other people participate in the development, including somebody from Education and Marketing, and there's always an internal Product Owner (who could be the engineer, too) with ultimate responsibility and accountability. The point of explaining this is that few outsourced PCB design efforts have succeeded with external contractors because of the internal communication that goes on during the design process. This is because every aspect of the product design must tightly consider the equipment we use, the parts we stock, the style of PCB we create, the cost of the BOM, the test procedures we use, etc. There's no "throw it over the fence" in Parallax - yet with consultants we must all take extra steps to make this integration have the same results as an internal teammate. It can take a significant amount of management from us and the contractor to make an outsourced design effort into a winning product. Our programming tools are the best example of successful outsourced efforts. Many of you have worked with us under agreements to produce and improve tools.
Yet we need additional PCB design capability right now, and we're looking towards consultants for these efforts. We need to access a larger base of designers than we have in Parallax.
There are many examples of key Parallax products that were created by engineers outside of Parallax. They include Joe Grand's RFID and Emic products, Phil Pilgrim and Ben Wirz's Scribbler and S2, and many educational tutorials.
When we post the Electronics Engineer job description please take a close look at the kinds of requirements we would like. Even if you are not interested in coming to Rocklin (sorry, we can't hire out of state anymore) you may wish to look at the Electronics Engineer job description from the standpoint of a design consultant. I am ready to hire one or two engineers for projects that match the skills we request, on a project-by-project basis. If you feel qualified to do this kind of work, please contact me.
If there are questions you feel would be helpful to have me answer about this on the forums, feel free to reply and ask them here.
Thanks,
Ken Gracey
P.S. While this post pertains to PCB design, we are about to consolidate our open source tools and code (P1 Verilog, SimpleIDE, GCC, PropellerIDE, S2GUI, BASIC Stamp Editor, etc.) and have additional needs for tool developers. I've already contacted several of you to formalize arrangements.
Tomorrow we will be posting two more positions, bringing it to three total open positions:
- STEM Educator - somebody to run courses and align our tutorials with NGSS/CC standards
- Electronics Engineer - PCB design, layout through production, documentation and code examples
- Technical Support - phone and e-mail support role to increase our pool and service
The reason I'm writing this message is because the position currently defined as Electronics Engineer is already loaded with excess demand. With Daniel on the FPGA project, Chip on P2, Jeff on tools, Chris on maintenance and support, David on several PCBs, and the additional EE we will still be unable to meet our design needs.
We have charted several products that we need to bring to market. Examples include a Propeller Flight Controller for use with the ELEV-8 V2 and our in-development UAV educational program, revisions to several popular Parallax products like the Board of Education USB, a dual 12V H-bridge, etc. In total we're backlogged with at least a dozen critical designs.
We have found that our best products are usually run by one engineer, from design through production. Other people participate in the development, including somebody from Education and Marketing, and there's always an internal Product Owner (who could be the engineer, too) with ultimate responsibility and accountability. The point of explaining this is that few outsourced PCB design efforts have succeeded with external contractors because of the internal communication that goes on during the design process. This is because every aspect of the product design must tightly consider the equipment we use, the parts we stock, the style of PCB we create, the cost of the BOM, the test procedures we use, etc. There's no "throw it over the fence" in Parallax - yet with consultants we must all take extra steps to make this integration have the same results as an internal teammate. It can take a significant amount of management from us and the contractor to make an outsourced design effort into a winning product. Our programming tools are the best example of successful outsourced efforts. Many of you have worked with us under agreements to produce and improve tools.
Yet we need additional PCB design capability right now, and we're looking towards consultants for these efforts. We need to access a larger base of designers than we have in Parallax.
There are many examples of key Parallax products that were created by engineers outside of Parallax. They include Joe Grand's RFID and Emic products, Phil Pilgrim and Ben Wirz's Scribbler and S2, and many educational tutorials.
When we post the Electronics Engineer job description please take a close look at the kinds of requirements we would like. Even if you are not interested in coming to Rocklin (sorry, we can't hire out of state anymore) you may wish to look at the Electronics Engineer job description from the standpoint of a design consultant. I am ready to hire one or two engineers for projects that match the skills we request, on a project-by-project basis. If you feel qualified to do this kind of work, please contact me.
If there are questions you feel would be helpful to have me answer about this on the forums, feel free to reply and ask them here.
Thanks,
Ken Gracey
P.S. While this post pertains to PCB design, we are about to consolidate our open source tools and code (P1 Verilog, SimpleIDE, GCC, PropellerIDE, S2GUI, BASIC Stamp Editor, etc.) and have additional needs for tool developers. I've already contacted several of you to formalize arrangements.
Comments
Best of luck to whoever gets the job.
learn a great deal from that, which adds to my interest and purpose in participating in
the forum.
Having said that, just a thought, would it be a possibility of putting those categories
of jobs that you need, in a catagory in the Forum? The engineer responsible for the
product line they are maintaing could reap the benefit from other ideas, and the
people in the forum would learn as well. If the hobbists know ahead of time how the
product is forming, (to a certain degree), that could boost purpose and provide
the history of the device in the threads. (historical diagnostics?) This philosophy
seems to be working with the P2.
Thanks.
Hey David, no, we're not planning on bringing the development in-house. We don't have the expertise for this - it lies with you, Steve, Eric and a few others. My reference to GCC above mostly pertains to hosting the source code in a new location. We plan on consolidating all of our open source code releases into a single Git repository very soon.
In regards to the S2, it'll need to be redeveloped for OSx, probably with a new toolchain. There's no hope of cross-compiling the current Perl code to any Mac system, unfortunately. Phil has spent enough time on that project to prove it's just not going to happen [due to some deep graphic add-ons he used that don't lend themselves to other OSs].
Ken Gracey
I'd like to reinforce one painful but necessary requirement: for the kinds of products we need, the engineer must have experience with DipTrace. We're not interested in import/export formats with Altium or other tools. We know this works as we can already do it, but for our outside work to be productive it must be done in DipTrace. I realize that Altium is a more professional tool (and we use it for our core products) but most of our staff and our customers use DipTrace. These files will also be open source releases, and we've settled on DipTrace for this purpose as well.
Ken Gracey
So you really mean you want to publish in DipTrace.
DipTrace shows many import choices, going back a number of years, so designers may be able to create in a mainstream CAD package ( PADS / Altium etc ) and then import into DipTrace for publishing ?
I presume you generate the Schematics at Parallax, and the Schematics drive your BOMs ?
DipTrace says this
[" SCH Import : Schematic capture module allows to exchange schematics and drawings with other EDA/CAD packages (DXF, Eagle, P-CAD, PADS, OrCAD).
SCH Export : Net-list Support: Accel, Allegro, Mentor, OrCAD, PADS, P-CAD, Protel, Tango.
PCB Design Import : Exchange layouts and libraries with DXF, Eagle, P-CAD/Altium, PADS and OrCAD.
PCB Net Import : net-lists from Accel, Allegro, Mentor, PADS, P-CAD, Protel and Tango formats.
']
Indeed, we can go back and forth between DipTrace and Altium as you have shown. However, we don't want to do this.
We have Altium licenses but more for DipTrace, and 75% of our PCB layout staff is using DipTrace.
And yes, we generate the schematic first, do the PCB layout/design and generate the BOM from the same material.
I have zero interest in exchanging file formats between various PCB programs. Yeah, it's easy. Even internally our PCB designers tell me how easy it is. But I guarantee you that some kind of compatibility issue will happen at the wrong time, costing us time and money (and a lack of inventory). For this reason, I'm asking for exactly what we'd like to have. This summer, for example, I saw the process of the DefCon22 badge going back and forth between DipTrace and Altium. To an engineer this may be a casual process requiring half of a day to ensure it's all right, but from my point of view that's four hours of opportunity cost and a $400 expense. And as a non-engineer, I'm simply calling the shots like a pointy-headed manager would do. It's pretty rare I actually manage in this way, but I've got 17 years of experience with engineers in different PCB programs. And when it comes down to updating a legacy product done in OrCad, Pads, or something else we don't have anymore because of silly license fees I feel that I've learned my lesson: choose the program we will use, and enforce it as a company standard.
BTW, the Propeller 1/2 FPGA board is done in Altium.
This probably limits the number of people who will work with us from the onset, but we're only one day into our search.
Cranky? On this subject, yes
Ken Gracey
I would agree that frequent "back and forth" is best avoided, but there is also the issue that you will limit the pool by constraining to only DipTrace.
A quick check with DipTrace website sees no mention of a Manual Shove Router or via-hopping - remove those features from a designers tool box, and the design will take longer, and be less compact that it could have been.
The kinds of designs we're outsourcing are quite simple: Dual 12V H-bridge, for example. Perhaps the lack of via-hopping is less of an issue with basic projects? Not sure - laying out a PCB is something I've never done but truly need to learn.
For now, I'm going to ask for what we want (and what will make our work easy). We're on day two of this request, so if we're still not making any headway in a week we'll just loosen the requirements.
Your input here is useful anyway and it's nice to keep this topic in motion by the community and Parallax.
Ken Gracey
Ken, You've not designed with Diptrace yet? Jump in! The water's fine! Start by making a module that plugs into the Activity Board or BOE board. Getting your designs back from PCB fab is like Christmas morning.
It's shameful, considering the industry in which I work. On one hand I've received very favorable support from the team at Parallax. If I want a PCB, they'll just make it for me! But, as you know, it may not be done exactly the way I'd like it done so I'd naturally lose a little bit of ownership over the work. This is only because I'm not doing the work myself, not because their work is anything less than perfect. Carson and I are putting together a Windows machine specifically for this purpose. My goal is to have my first PCB designed and interrogated by this forum no later than mid-December. I'm thinking of making a new business card with an E-Ink display.
Even worse is that David, Daniel or MattH would gladly spend time with me if needed. Yet every day brings it surprises it seems, keeping this new talent at arm's reach. Today brought some customer requests, a bit of forum excitement and some [you'll like this] impromptu meeting with the Propeller 2 layout / synthesis engineers. Tomorrow is looking quite open at this stage.
Ken Gracey
hehe - even 'quite simple' can have fish hooks.
eg Even on 'simple' 2 layer boards, we like to aggressively maximize copper areas for cooling, and lowest i2r losses, and that is a whole lot easier with shoving and packing multiple traces.
I'll download a DipTrace trial, and check the Import on a few designs, to see exactly what wrinkles there are.
On a Shove Router, drag-via also shoves traces ahead of it.
I downloaded DipTrace and had a play on Import/export. No brick walls, but some 'rules' best used.
PADS -> Diptrace had issues where DipTrace has no equivalent database support.
eg No Offset drill, issues on a double sided SMD part, and native pad stackup variances, and paste Vias ...
Note most of those are Library issues, and you would be expected to have a 'master library' in DipTrace.
I'm guessing you can craft a paste-via within DipTrace.
Going DipTrace -> PADS on one of their demos, had 3 issues
a) Connectivity fail in 2 places
b) Clearance fail on one part
c) Colour and Defaults needed adjust
Item c) is minor, and Thermals on Routed pads needs to be ticked to match DT Pour.
a) turned out to be an error in the original design, edit that oops, fixed errors
b) turned out to be a setting error in DT, their netclass had a larger clearance, edit that fixed errors
(perhaps a netclass nesting/priority difference ?)
Schematic import PADS Logic -> DipTrace seemed visually and electrically ok, with just minor issues on default visibility of pin labels.
Even DipTrace -> PADS Logic (via P-CAD export) imported tolerably. Mainly pin label location movements.
So it looks workable to have a hand over from a Parallax Master Schematic via Netlist and/or SCH translate, and it is common for companies to manage their libraries in-house (esp for SMD assembly), so a hand over with unplaced parts gives you control over Library and final flows, but allows more choice in PCB design tool.
(((yes, techno must play when laser is in use)))
Mostly the laser will be used to see if the boss is coming.
Many qualified people responded to this request. We made two selections and have a few projects getting accomplished that were stalled at Parallax. Thank you to the many engineers who replied to the inquiry.
In a week Jeff and I will be posting a similar request pertaining to ChromApps development for the BASIC Stamp (with Propeller next).
Ken Gracey
Wish I could have been in the mix, but there are too many smart people around here.
Meanwhile, I didn't apply -- too far away, too old, and not quite sharp enough. Good luck to those that become employed. We will expect a lot of you.
Nonetheless, I am pondering my own ideal Propeller board.