| [ MIT ] in KIDS 글 쓴 이(By): cycho (멋진척) 날 짜 (Date): 1999년 7월 16일 금요일 오전 12시 29분 49초 제 목(Title): [EETimes] Boston hums as tech mecca Boston hums as tech mecca By Adam Marcus, EE Times Jul 15, 1999 (7:24 AM) URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990715S0001 "If you are one, it's great. If you're looking for one, it's lousy." Howard Foley could be describing a lot of things, from a first-round NBA draft pick to an honest used-car salesman. But in fact, Foley is lamenting the engineering jobs picture in Massachusetts, where he serves as president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council (Waltham, Mass.). "We have thousands of jobs going begging," Foley said. "Every day there's somebody coming up with something new and looking for people to do it." Since its nadir in the mid-1990s, when several big companies severed or trimmed their ties to the area, Route 128 has returned to prominence as one of the nation's premier high-tech zones. And the rejuvenation hasn't been limited to just this highway that loops around Boston, but has expanded to other parts of the metro area as well. Foley said most of the recent activity can be traced to the Internet. "Anything hardware, software or consultancy related to network systems is hot, hot," he said. Tom Hubbard, of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (Westborough), a group that mulls high-tech issues for regional companies, said the boom's great success is also its biggest failure. "We wouldn't be having this work-force crisis if there wasn't a lot of activity now." The collaborative produced a report last November that found local high-tech businesses were between 10 and 15 percent shy of optimal technical staffing. The situation was more dire for biotechnology firms, which face a 25 percent shortfall. "It is a constraint on growth," said Hubbard. "Sooner or later it will be a constraint on innovation." What makes the problem worse, Hubbard said, is an alarming down-trend in graduation rates among EEs and computer scientists at local engineering schools - and good ones are plentiful in the commonwealth. "A saving grace for Massachusetts has been immigration," said Hubbard. Harvard, MIT and other major universities in the state draw skilled foreign students and workers, a supply of labor that replaces, at least in part, the native dearth. One company seeking qualified candidates is Intel Network Systems. Intel recently bought Shiva, a networking company in Bedford, incorporating the acquisition into its WAN Systems Operations group. Dayton Semerjian, director of marketing for the unit, said Intel is looking for "software engineers, QA engineers and hardware engineers to work on modem technology." The company has advertised its positions both on the Internet and in the local newspapers. "Once people understand that the Intel business [in Bedford] isn't microprocessors, we're finding that we're getting a lot of local recruits," Semerjian said. Another local giant is EMC Corp. (Hopkinton, Mass.), a data-storage leader and one of the area's biggest tech employers. EMC has a few handfuls of openings for engineers, including posts in systems and software. One position is for a software engineer for the company's disaster-recovery unit. The ideal candidate for that job should have three years of experience in the field, but the usual cast of characters - C, C++ and Perl - are specifically not required. Data General Corp. (Westborough, Mass.), is also hiring. The company has several openings for software engineers, including a principal position for the storage-area network technologies operations. Candidates for this title should be familiar with Clariion Fibre Channel disk arrays. Data General is also seeking a senior hardware engineer with a BSCS or BSEE and three to seven years of experience in logic design, Viewlogic tools, and design and documentation of cable systems. Finally, Sun Microsystems Inc. has more than 80 slots available in its Chelsmford/Burlington division. These include hardware and software titles, such as applications development, network-management products, high-performance computing, board and module design, and ASIC/chip design. |