Preface to Electronics and Embedded Systems Design Best Practices

This post is really just the start of what I believe will be a long series of posts that will likely bore most people. However, this medium is fairly nice for documenting thoughts of this nature due to is semi permanent and public record status.

Basically, I have come to the conclusion that a major problem that exists currently is there is no concise, focus, and mostly inclusive reference of Best Practices or rules of thumb for any kind of electronic design. The CRC exists for Chemists and Chemical Engineers, civils have several depending on their individual field but electrical and computer engineers have very little. Most of what a young engineer fresh out of college needs is gained by experience.

For whatever reason, be it cost, timeframe, or just lack of engineers the concept of young engineers being mentored for several years by an experienced engineer is all but non-existent in the field of electronics. From what I have seen most places an engineer fresh out of college will end up in one of three types of jobs: paperwork only (managerial or project), monkey (very limited tasks, over-trained for the work), or a G.O.A.T (geek of all trades).

I have personally found myself in all those positions, sometimes all at the same time, but inadvertently I find myself in the last category all too often. Mostly I notice that the lack of a handbook or mentoring programs is painfully evident. I count myself lucky in having a couple very good mentors. Most notable of them all of course would be the guy that spent years designing and building military radios.

I believe if the trend of throwing fresh engineers into design positions without regard for mentoring then a handbook is an absolute necessity. There needs to be reference that covers everything from specifications to manufacturability and six sigma. A reference that will point out potential pitfalls, a reference that shows good design principles (general of course) and bad ones.

So that is what I will be posting shortly. And in the sprit of engineering process, the next post will be an outline.

Note: This is not meant to be an authoritative work. I expect it to change and grow with time, I may even be wrong occationally (yah I know...amazing, no smart ass remarks : )

Comments and corrections are welcome.