engineering at a fruit company

It’s such a relief to finally make this post. After a little over a month of interviews, more interviews, and plenty of waiting, I’ve accepted a job offer at Apple in Cupertino.

The official title of the position is “system validation engineer.” I know, it sounds laughably mundane. But trust me, it rocks. The job listing on Apple’s website actually calls the position “HW/SW engineer,” which I think is a little more appropriate. I didn’t even know what the name of the position would be until I saw the offer letter. Basically, I’ll be working with a team of people to put together all the new Apple hardware. Take, for example, the new G5. The processor came from IBM, but all the rest of the nuts and bolts on the motherboard were made by Apple in-house. Once the components were done, someone had to take all the pieces and assemble them, and get them to boot. Same for the Powerbooks, iPods, or whatever.

Also, new hardware is often designed to be multi-purpose. For example, the same network chip might go first into a desktop machine and later into a laptop. Different parts of the hardware might be exercised by the two roles. It will be my job to make sure there are no new problems when trying to integrate the hardware further down the road.

I’ve met a couple of people that I’ll be working with, and they seem amazing. One is a fellow UT grad. All of them (besides me) have many years of experience. It’s a bit daunting to start out at my first job in a senior group, but it’s also exciting to be handed serious responsibility right out of the gate.

Okay, looking over that description, I realize that the job still seems pretty mundane. But at least *I* am excited about it. And even better, I’m working at a company I admire. I really couldn’t have hoped for an outcome like this when I made the decision to move down here.

It will be weird putting my brain back in gear after such a long vacation. Our apartment has probably seen its cleanest days, and will now begin a long decline into neglect. We probably won’t cook so much. But more importantly, I won’t feel useless all the time.

Yay job.