antenna-theory.com

[mr-green]

Hi,

I'm offered an antenna engineer position for auto motives and telematics. In such position, I would be developing AM/FM, GPS, sirius XM radio, WLAN, LTE antennas for vehicular wireless communication. The antennas are roof mounted, on glass, or embedded inside tracking boxes. Although It seems to be interesting field, i'm skeptical if i could switch later into the handsets industry (phones/tablets, ....etc.) which is my ultimate goal (make me more excited!!).

In my opinion they are very related and require common skills, but is this true from the perspective of consumer handsets develpment business?!! I'd like to share your thoughts if the automotive field would hand me off the handsets field?! Would my experience in the automotive field be appreciated or considered if i think to move back to design antennas for phones, tablets, APs,,etc.


Looking for your advices.

Regards,

[Schubert]

Well the automotive world is significantly different than the smartphone world. If you don't have other options, you will certainly learn more working as an antenna engineer for a car company then doing nothing or working in defense/university land.

If your goal is to get in to smartphones, have you applied to Lab126? I know they are hiring (amazon). Then you can look at the obvious candidates (apple, motorola, samsung, nokia, etc). Apple likes there people to have phds, but they do their recruiting at antenna conferences generally. That's how they got me (I worked at boeing, saw apple at a conference, then interviewed - left 4 years later though).

If none of these places call you back, then you should take the automotive job, as you'll learn a bunch and can then leverage it into a job in a couple years

[mr-green]

Thank you for the valuable advice. In fact, the other options i have; an antenna engineer position in a start-up like company(cool and nice) whose main products are embedded antennas for home WLAN boxes, such as Direct TV, Belkin access points, etc. They touch base also with others products , such as LTE USB dongles, wireless measurement instrument, and etc. Although its about embedded antenna designs for the consumer industry(my beloved segment), my concern is the company main practice on integration for maximum throughput, other than antenna development itself. In other words, they do have many in-house designs, and mostly they will be engineering its placement within the box for optimum performance. No extensive hands-on development, or design experience. Breifly, I see it an antenna integration engineer position!...