The Survey Said: What Does It Take to Become a Great Designer?

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There are thousands of good PCB designers around the world. But the number of truly great designers makes up a much smaller universe. 

What does it take to become a great designer? After all, there isn’t exactly a critical path to becoming a great designer. How does a designer qualify as “great” in the first place?

We posed that question to our PCB designer readers in a recent survey, and, as usual, the readers did not disappoint. These are a few of the more illustrative answers, edited slightly for clarity.

1. Great designers have a love for layout and plenty of experience. Training is not helpful, but mentoring is very valuable.

2. You need to have a broad knowledge of the physics behind the process—metallurgy, chemistry, mechanics, and electronics—and the interaction between opposing issues (which ones should be given priority over another).

3. It takes experience and the ability to communicate with both designers and production engineers closely.

4. I personally think a great PCB designer should start with basic drafting skills and basic electronics. Learn everything you can about PCB fabrication, assembly and test. Then jump back in and learn in-depth electronic applications, maybe focusing on a desired field. We should not expect engineers with tons of application skills and minimal PCB knowledge to create great PCB layouts.

5. Learning from those with the proven ability to design optimal PCBs is the best way to gain from the experience of others. However, is there a reluctance on the part of those with experience to pass it on to the next generation? Those who will be retiring in 2-3 years can afford to train less experienced engineers, but I believe that those with 20 years to run are much less likely to share what they've learned. This is especially true in companies with a history of “hire and fire.”

Special thanks to all of our readers who responded to this survey. We appreciate your input.