Recruiting the Next Generation of PCB Designers at Garmin

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Laura Beth (LB) Yates, PCB design engineering manager at Garmin, discusses the company's innovative approach to recruiting the next generation of PCB designers. LB is leading the company’s efforts to find and develop new talent, which includes working with technical schools, and inspiring high school students to pursue careers in PCB design.

In this interview, she discusses Garmin’s plans to create a robust pipeline of skilled professionals ready to become the next generation of PCB designers. As she points out, the best part of her job is “going to work every day with my friends and making cool stuff.” If you’re looking for a job making cool stuff, LB would love to speak with you.

Andy Shaughnessy: LB, I understand that you have a plan for recruiting PCB designers. Walk me through your process.

Laura Beth (LB) Yates: We have PCB design teams in Cary, North Carolina; Olathe, Kansas, where Garmin is headquartered; Salem, Oregon; and Cochran, Alberta, Canada. We partner with local tech schools and our vendor, EMA Design Automation, gives them licenses and curricula to help train PCB designers as part of their electronics programs.

EMA Design Automation has developed a curriculum to take the Arduino module from schematic to PCB layout/DFM. EMA will give that curriculum and OrCAD licenses to the schools to help them implement this, and then we have a pipeline to hire designers who are new to the industry.

Shaughnessy: Does Garmin teach this class?

Yates: We don’t; the tech schools are teaching these classes. They already have electronic technician programs. If you already have a program, this is just a semester or a module of that program. Then we can hire from that program.

Shaughnessy: That's great. Design instruction is much needed right now.

Yates: I agree, and we have tech school partners in most locations of our PCB Design teams.

Shaughnessy: How do you get students into these programs in the first place?

Yates: Garmin has recruiting events where we talk to high school juniors and seniors to get them jazzed about non-traditional careers in tech, whether that's troubleshooting for customers and doing customer support on one of our many products, PCB design, or engineering technician bench work. There are different jobs available, so when I talk to these high schoolers, I ask, “Do you like sitting in a dark room and rocking out to music and playing puzzle-solving video games? Because that's a job, and it's called PCB design.”

To read this entire conversation, which appeared in the February 2025 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.