Sometimes it’s a bit of a struggle to come up with something relevant to write. I try to write about topical subjects in EMC or spectrum supportability, but sometimes things are just slow. Right now we’re trying to hire a RF Spectrum engineers for some Navy work and it’s just hard to find quality resumes. I started wondering why, and I’ve concluded it’s a combination of high employment in this particular niche business and a lack of training in that particular area.
In the DoD spectrum management (and EMC, by extension) worlds, demand for work is far exceeding supply of capable people to do it. This can be directly attributed to the ongoing spectrum reallocation and repurposing (I LOVE that term!) from a variety of spectral auctions in past years to the current 500MHz Presidential Initiative. When these actions affect government spectrum users (with the DoD being the largest user by far), it spawns an endless supply of analysis work to determine the possible impact to DoD operations. I’m certainly not knocking this work; it needs to be done and done well because billions of dollars are at stake. It also tends to be high paying work done by senior engineers that have certain expertise in spectrum engineering. In addition, mandates in the form of DoD Directives and Instructions related to spectrum use and EMC help to ensure that those technical requirement areas are included when procuring spectrum dependent equipment and other electronic systems. Suffice it to say, there’s no lack of work, both civil service and contractor, in the military communications-electronics and platform integration world. There isn’t always enough funding to do the work properly, but that’s another story!
The rosy employment scenario is one reason it’s hard to fill positions. The other big reason, at least from what I’m seeing right now in resumes, is that a lot of what the military needs regarding spectrum engineering work, just isn’t taught anywhere. Sure, the actual uniformed military trains its spectrum managers, and they do it well, but these guys aren’t the RF engineers needed for all the technical analysis, testing, etc. The current crop of DoD contract spectrum engineers seem to be very senior, started with EEs, maybe working in the non-DoD manufacturing sector and transitioned at some point to this nebulous engineering support world. From there on, there is an awful lot of on-the-job training that turns into experience that is only available in that one person.I could easily name several very senior EM/Spectrum engineers that have spent the majority of careers working on a single program until they are literally irreplaceable. Until they retire, that is! So its nigh on impossible to find a junior or even mid-level spectrum engineer for DoD work with any significant experience in DoD spectrum certification processes. Most of the experienced ones have a lot of telecomm companies on their resumes doing cell phone and wireless internet work. Close, but no cigar! That leaves a pretty big learning curve for the client to have to consider for most candidates we’ve come up with.
– Brian Farmer
