What are some viable career options for an FAE?

November 2, 2011 10:32 PM

What are some viable career options for a hardware (semiconductors) Field Applications Engineer?

Trying to pick a direction to advance professionally and I'm interested in hearing from FAE's about the career paths you took and your reasons for doing so, or anyone that can offer advice in that regard. I work in semiconductor storage in Silicon Valley but I don't necessarily want to limit the scope to that field.

Continue as an FAE? Migrate to a more traditional engineering role? (If so, what and how?) The other options would seem to be technical marketing and/or technical sales and I'd be interested in hearing the pros and cons of each, or other options I haven't considered.

posted by TwoWordReview to Work & Money (2 answers total)

I'm not an FAE, but I was a semiconductor product engineer for many years in Silicon Valley. An FAE has two paths, either move towards the customer or back towards the design/development part of the business. It really depends on what interests you more - they're both good moves.

If you like the business of creating semiconductors, then your best move back to the core of the business is technical marketing. You should have lots of experience dealing with customer issues/wants and that is great preparation for helping define the next generation of products. This role is less technical than you're used to and more people/market focused. You should be networking hard with the product marketing group to look out for opportunities to move back.

If you like building stuff with the chips your company makes, then consider going to work for one of your customers as a design engineer. You should be a subject matter expert for the parts your company sells, find a customer that you like whose technology really depends on those parts.
posted by Long Way To Go at 8:41 AM on November 3, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks, appreciate the input!
posted by TwoWordReview at 12:49 PM on November 5, 2011