Once you have successfully made your transition from a rookie into a professional, the next goal is to become an expert in your area.  Let me first share what had happened to me at this stage.

After spending two years at RCA as an engineer I set a goal to become an expert in MOS design, an up and coming field crucial to the semiconductor field which in turn is crucial to the coming of personal computers in the new era.  To achieve that, I changed job and moved from RCA (in New Jersey) to Mostek (in Dallas TX), a leader in the semiconductor field at that time.  There I became a circuit designer in MOS memory.  I got to learn the cutting-edge technique of  “full die simulation” and designed the world’s first 8Kx8 NAND ROM circuit, all in one year.

In this process, my boss Dennis at Mostek taught me and mentored me greatly.  He led me into the inside world  of “circuit design”, which really helped me advance myself into the rank of being an expert.  I was quite happy with I achieved, but quickly found that there were bigger opportunity in the emergent field of DRAM design.  Because of that, I moved again, this time from Dallas TX to Austin TX, to join Motorola.  There I used the tool “full die simulation”, which I had learned at Mostek, to identify the root cause of the problems that we encountered in 16K DRAM production.  This further widened the lead of Motorola in this area.  It also provided a solid platform for me to advance to the expert stage.

From my experience, I feel that there are a list of things that may help those young professional who are aspiring to advance to their next stage:

  1. Find your position.  Move to a ‘creative’ workplace.  Such units are more likely to be product design units, where the engineering aspect and the artisan aspect of a product meet.

  2. Pick one area and master it.  Become a true expert in this area.

  3. Establish your own reputation and work platform by demonstrating your ability to successfully and independently leading a product development project and launching the product to the market.  This way, you will gain valuable experience of the whole product development cycle.  Also your results will be validated by the market, and in turn you will gain the trust and support of your team.

  4. Communication and interaction with your colleague is important at this stage.  In particular, interact and discuss more with those who are more capable than you.

  5. Find a mentor that can help you.  Do not complain.  Do not gossip.

In short, if you are able to make major contributions to your company, then you will firmly establish yourself as an expert.

Next time, we will talk about what lies ahead after you become an expert.

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