Analog and Digital Electronics
Published by Engineering Employment · Wednesday 04 Dec 2024 · 3:30
“Why do you want this job?” in Electronics is a question that could only be answered using Analogue, (or Analog) Electronics. Whereas “Are you a team player?” could be answered by a Digital signal; ‘yes’ or ‘no’.First of all; in The Kings English the correct spelling is “analogue” however “Analog” is standard for our American cousins.
So in simple terms the distinction comes from the signal used Off or On / Yes or No / Binary are digital signals. Conversely real world signals like the voice coming out of your radio, your satellite navigation or any ‘wave’ are all analogue.
Who cares right?
Well Engineers care greatly for many reasons principally much like in Ghostbusters one must never ‘cross the streams’; confusing an analogue signal with a digital one or vice versa will break everything.
From a recruitment perspective probably the salient point is that typically an Analogue Electronic Engineer can also do Digital but the reverse is not necessarily the case.
If we take kitchen design as an analogy, (bear with me).
If you went to a kitchen reseller and asked them to design your kitchen they would use an app or software tool, which is a kin to the Digital Design process and usually works fine. You’ll get the kitchen you want as long as they are able to input your parameters into their system.
Now, if you were to require something that their ‘computer said no’ to (for the sake of this example let’s pretend you wanted a hygienic compost heap next to your sink), then they would need an Analogue [kitchen] Design Engineer to take the compost heap specification, build it from first principals, (pencil, paper and a tape measure) then incorporate that into the larger Digital [kitchen] Design.
Recruit to purpose!
So continuing the analogy if you were the above kitchen reseller and needed to hire someone with analogue kitchen design skills, (or an analogue electronic design skilled engineer in the real world) should you go for a contractor or permanent person?
The answer depends on what the company’s plans are, in this example the sensible option would be to find a contractor; they will get the job done quickly and efficiently, then should you need them again you can call on them. I say this because it is extremely unlikely that the next customer will also want the same thing, (a compost heap in their kitchen) moreover that the internal talent pool would have much interest or enthusiasm in cross training into composting science. That said if the converse were true then it would make sense to hire a good Digital Design Engineer permanently who wanted to learn the Analogue side and train them. This way the company and team retain the skills for the same future need and in the event there is a future requirement that requires a ‘blank page’ or back to first principals process it will be easier to deliver.
How to hire?
Ask your team, Engineers know Engineers. Also get them to ideally write but at least read your job advert, technical detail is a language of its own and non-technical people or the most current natural language artificial intelligence can easily miss communicate or contradict essential context.
Advertise a job v engage a recruitment consultant?
Either or both are fine, for permanent positions posting the job direct works best on the company carers page and at least one dedicated job board such as Engineering Employment who will cross post your vacancy to other job boards, LinkedIn, Indeed etc and have it indexed on Google Jobs and Google Search.
If you are looking for a contractor a Recruiter might be quicker and easier.