I am an electrical engineer with a focus on designing embedded systems in aerospace applications who has slowly been pulled to the dark side of software engineering. I try to straddle the formiddable chasm between hardware and software which usually makes me either the most hardware-oriented of the software engineers or the most software-minded of the hardware designers. If I go too many days without getting to probe a circuit with my logic analyzer or oscilloscope I start to get a little antsy at my terminal and if I spend too long without coding anything my eyes start to glaze over and schematic symbols blur together.
I also have a masters degree in Philosophy and have taught several courses in deductive logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning. It's a strange combination, but analytic philosophy is essentially trying to think systematically through some of life's most difficult questions and I've found that flexing those mental muscles and having opportunities to teach has made me a much better engineer.
