Landing a scientist job in the robotics industry
Sharing thoughts on how to land a scientist job in the robotics industry (in the US).
Industry - How to land a scientist job (robotics)
One of my undergraduate friends is recently in the interviewing process for a scientist position in the robotics industry. Therefore, I decided to write this article this week. The focus today is on "scientist positions," i.e., positions for people who have a PhD degree or are high-achieving masters students with convincing research outcomes. It's important to note that you do not need a PhD or master's degree to get into robotics - in fact, having an undergraduate engineering degree is sufficient for most positions in the robotics industry. (I'll talk about these other pathways in the future.)
There are broadly three steps to landing a job in general: preparation, connecting (i.e., getting your first call from HR), and interviewing. Each step could be extended into a full article, but today, I'll highlight some core ideas for each and focus more on the interviewing part.
Preparation is a long game. Many robotics-related tasks require hands-on experience and expertise in a specific area. If you are an undergraduate thinking about a career in robotics, the first thing is to build your experience in one of the core areas: perception, planning, and controls. (Note that mechanical design is not usually linked to a scientist position.)
Getting traction on your resume is always hard, and it's sometimes unclear how to increase the chance of your resume being picked up. Alternatively, leveraging connections can provide significantly higher chances of getting a call from HR. Whether it's asking a friend to provide a referral or directly messaging your resume to people you know on LinkedIn, the main takeaway is: don't be shy. People are generally kind, but you need to make the first move. Spending more time exploiting your connections is better time spent compared to applying online randomly.
Interviewing is always nerve-racking. One way to get rid of nerves is to be better prepared. Here are some tips:
Understand the company: most companies have their own "culture." For example, Amazon uses the Leadership Principles to describe key qualities they are looking for. These principles may sound clichéd at first, but a company values these qualities because they can provide more common ground when people are communicating and making decisions. Understanding the company's language can make the communication more precise, even though you are only at the interview stage.
Understand the interviewer: most companies will let you know the name of the interviewer before the interview. This gives you a great chance to do some research on the interviewer. Whether using LinkedIn or Google Scholar, this information helps you explore if you have some connection with the interviewer already. Explaining your skill set in the context that the interviewer is familiar with will also help them understand you better. Finally, don't worry that the interviewer will get offended if they learn that you have searched for them online. If anything, they will be pleased to see that you did your homework.
During the interview, there are two mindsets that I find helpful for candidates:
Be specific, provide data: most job openings are looking for people with a specific skill set, even though the job description can be quite vague at times. This means interviewers are looking for someone with certain expertise supported by measurable results, not someone who can do an average job in many domains but cannot go deep in any of them. As candidates, we sometimes have a tendency to try to show the breadth of our skills. However, some of this information may actually be useless when it comes to hiring decisions. A candidate with a mindset of "providing the data they need, not providing the data I prefer" can most efficiently utilize the interview time and help interviewers make fair assessments.
Interviewers are rooting for you! I first learned this idea from one of my PhD qualifying exam committee members. He said, "The exam is a time-consuming process, so we all want you to do well and pass the test. (So that we don't need to waste time and do this again for you.)" His words actually took off a lot of unnecessary pressure from me at the time. This is the same for interviews. Interviewers are not evil people who want to see candidates fail. In fact, their goal going into an interview is to find data to say "yes" to the candidate; interviewers will try their best to help the candidate be successful during the interview.
I hope you find something helpful! If you are currently looking for a scientist role in robotics, I'm rooting for you! (Feel free to leave a message if you want to connect!)
Robotics - Inverse kinematics [resources]
Ah, running out of space again. Let me put some lightweight content here. I’ll continue the mathematical part next time, but today, I’ll share two links to websites that talk about IK in detail: