Overcoming obstacles through resilience and positivity

Let me tell you a story about how I got started in 2005. This was my first job after I graduated from Tufts University with a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering. It was a very cold February day, and I interviewed for an entry level position at Analog Devices. We spent 8 hours solving problems on a board, with a break for lunch. I thought I handled myself fairly well. I was immediately contacted by HR who indicated that the team liked me. But it was only in April that I was made an offer. It turned out the team was intrigued by my resume even though there was no open position. But they liked me so much that they decided to open a new position for me, and that took a while. I was happy to have found a job and I was going to start in May, about a week after graduation.

Upon starting, I found out that the work we were doing had little to do with my university specialization. I had an electrical engineering degree but that degree was vast. I specialized in analog engineering. But the group that I was in, was designing computational units: digital engineering. While both of these disciplines are subsets of semiconductor engineering, they couldn't be further apart in raw knowledge, application, and style of thought. A good analogy for that is to consider a complex multi-disciplinary product: designing an airplane for example. Folks who design the engines and others who architect the wings and tails for aerodynamics are all "technically" aeronautical engineers, but their areas of expertise couldn't be any more different, and you couldn't swap them easily.

On my first day, I felt confused and almost lost, but I decided that I would only feel like that for one day. I told myself: "That’s not what you expected, but you found a job. It's what you make of it that matters."

So I immediately set out to do "everything". And by "everything" I mean: creating a mindset of positivity paired with hard work. I had a very good boss, but I made it a point to build a good relationship with him, and to ask an infinite number of questions. I did not care that I was a junior out of college. I networked and connected with senior leaders in the group. I went to lunch with them. I sat with people who knew things I did not know. I built relationships to learn. In the background, I worked hard: extremely hard. I picked up books, went online, read everything I could about computational units. I worked late. I came to work early. I tried things, went above and beyond and I delivered. I made mistakes and when my boss explained, I listened carefully. I jotted down notes immediately after I finished fast meetings with him. And I set off to execute. I never wanted to make the same mistake twice.

 Within 3 months I was delivering incremental but good results. Within 6 months, I was versed with the specific technical linguistics and including the groups' product culture. Within 9 months I was delivering large portions of the product design. I was progressing so fast, my manager pulled me into more advanced meetings and we designed an algorithm for which we both received a patent. Within two years, my manager gave me complete ownership of a major section of the product, with freedom to manage its evolution, and including discussions with cross-functional stakeholders. Within four years (2009) I was in meetings with senior leadership (despite not being in a senior role) explaining and rationalizing status updates. I had delivered four major hardware modules into this product for Analog Devices.

Much later, after I understood the context of the group and its products within Analog Devices broader portfolio, I realized why I was hired and the impact I had made. I was hired for my resilience, positivity, adaptability, willingness and ability to learn quickly. Given that the product was delayed, and that costs had to be managed, I was hired to come in and give my manager the help he needed to succeed on some critical designs that were very unique, and where folks much more senior than me were actually required. But because of the uniqueness of the products, it may not have been appropriate to hire an experienced person. The group thought it was better to hire someone who could grow and understand the product from the ground up.

Together, we succeeded and in reward for the work I did … in 2008, my manager promoted me and in 2009, he handed me complete control over the entire product design. I still reported to him and I could leverage him for advice on high-level decisions, but he went on to develop an entirely new line of products for Analog Devices. I was glad that he trusted me to manage the evolution of what he had worked so hard to conceive and build.