 Jay O'Dell
NT Software Development Manager
Tandem Computers, Inc.
Cupertino, CA
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 B.S. -
Mathematics and Physics, Bowling Green State University |
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Section Manager for
various teams of technical engineers. He plays a bridge role
facilitating the product development process between the
executives, who are interested in a product's market and cost,
and the engineers, whose interest is to build the best
functionality for that product. |
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"Engineers have to
be able to communicate, and be both a leader and a follower on a
team." |
O'Dell:
"Okay, I'm what's known as a section manager for Tandem Computers. It's a
business role with a technical edge. And the technical edge is that I hire
teams of engineers to work for me. And they're extremely technical. And I
need to understand the details of what they work on clearly enough to
abstract it to the 30,000 ceiling where executives live. Executives are
interested in market, channels to market, budgets, cost, and cost of
ownership. A lot of things associated with products. The engineers are
interested in the interesting way to build the functionality that you
want, whether it's software or hardware."
"So the question on the table is if I've got two engineers to hire, and
one is a genius, clearly demonstrable as a genius in their educational
background. The other one has a good educational background - clearly
smart enough to get through the door and has met all the qualifications
for the job - and communicates well, which one would I hire? And the one I
would hire would be the one who communicates well."
For Jay O'Dell of Tandem Computers the keys to success in the business
world are knowledge and commitment. When hiring new engineers, he looks
for candidates who have a deep understanding of their areas. He also looks
for people who can make progress without supervision. He explains that
business is concerned with "how [your work moves] the product forward to
the customer- not really with how hard you're working during the day."
Therefore, it is imperative for the engineer to "know how hard you can
work, and when you can work, and your ability to work." In addition, to
produce results, the engineer has to be able to communicate and be both a
leader and a follower on a team: qualities that are "not always easy to
find in a field where people spend a lot of time alone studying in order
to get the information."
In his own case, O'Dell's commitment in his first year of work got his
career off the ground. His first job was a one year position at the
Lawrence Livermore International Laboratory funded by the Department of
Energy. "At the end of that year, I was to be considered for a permanent
position. So my goal was to get hired for the second year." O'Dell's
course of action is a useful example to any young engineer. "I'm very
stubborn; I will stick to a problem until it's solved. I realized that
there were people around who had solved the problems that I ran up
against. And so I tried to emulate or understand or find a mentor in those
people. I tried everything that I could think of. I tried getting better
educated, working very hard, and improving all of my soft skills like
communicating and working on a team in that first year. And then I was
hired for my second year so I won!" But he cautions that, once hired,
engineers need to continue "reeducating" themselves to stay on top.
In his years in the industry, O'Dell has seen many changes a significant
one being the number of opportunities available to handicapped engineers.
"I got my first job in the industry in 1978. The state of handicapped
access is much, much different today than it was then. When I go through
the door, people look at my qualifications now; they don't look at my
handicap." O'Dell tells students, "If you have a disability, don't let it
stop you getting a job."
What disabled engineers should expect to do is explain their concerns to
their employers. "The law says that, if you have the necessary skills, the
business will make what they call reasonable accommodations. 'Reasonable'
usually refers to cost. You don't want to put a business out of business
to help someone. But what is reasonable?" O'Dell advises the engineer to
discuss the problem and the needed accommodations in a frank way with
management "because they don't know." O'Dell's personal accommodation is
that he doesn't fly. In order to get management to understand the problems
of airplane travel for a person with a wheelchair, he has gone through
some of the details, so they can internalize the difficulty. And they
usually agree. I've only had to go on one trip in nineteen years."
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