>Business momentum also remained at a high as book-to-bill was again "solidly above" unity.
book (to bill) 'em, Danno?
personally, i always preferred Hawaii Five-0.
sorry, i just couldn't come up with anything snazzy for Portland(!).
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Hawaii's a high-tech hot spot, especially in telecom
Adam Marcus
02/14/2000
Electronic Engineering Times
Page 182
Magnum P.I. did it, so can you. That's the advice of Dennis Daley, a high-tech recruiter at Adecco Technical Services in Honolulu who said engineers should consider America's island paradise if they want a change.
"My business is absolutely booming," said Daley. While that sounds about status quo for the engineering job market, consider this: Until recently, technical professionals were shipping out to the mainland in droves. Increasingly over the last few years, Hawaii has been making a concerted effort, through tax incentives and other initiatives, to attract high-tech businesses.
The approach appears to be working. Last year Daley helped form the Hawaii Technology Trade Association. At last count, the group had enrolled more than 235 member companies. "We're really starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel," said Daley.
Though Hawaii is best known for its supercomputing presence-Maui's High Performance Computer Center is one of the top facilities in the world-it could soon be making waves in telemedicine and telecom, said Daley. "All the major cables that go to Asia run through Hawaii, and it's the ideal place for call centers" that want to straddle the U.S. and the Pacific Rim.
Hawaii does have a high cost of living. Prices tend to be high for commodities that have to be brought over from the West Coast. In some ways, however, it can be deceptively cheap. Although houses with land are priced comparable to those in the San Francisco Bay Area, Daley said people who are willing to give up a yard can find bargains. And because Hawaii's worst problem in winter is warm rain, heating costs are nil. That helps make the 15 to 20 percent lower tech salaries a lot more palatable.
15,000 hits a week
The transformation of the state's tech economy has been so marked, Daley said, that much of his business involves placing engineers who left but now want to return. He gets inquiries from other job seekers as well. In fact, Daley said his Web site averages 15,000 hits a week, and he takes in up to 150 e-mails a day for the 10 or so jobs he posts each month.
Of course, many would prefer to live on the mainland and vacation in the islands. In that case, the Pacific Northwest is the place to go for a wealth of technical opportunities.
"There's a lot of hiring going on right now," said Frank Odia, senior staffing consultant at the High Tech Staffing Group in Portland, Ore., who sees many openings for both hardware and software personnel.
With the chip industry booming, Portland has loads of available positions for designers. PMC-Sierra, for example, needs a software design engineer with at least two years of experience developing real-time embedded software, ideally in telecommunications or data communications. "Knowledge of communications protocols, especially the IP protocol, would be a definite asset, while good communications skills are required."
The company's other openings include product validation engineer, IC verification engineer, and a IC design engineer who is "an accomplished professional with superior problem-solving skills and experience in high- speed circuitry."
In Spokane, Wash., the utility client server Itron has positions available on the hardware and software sides. Itron is seeking senior engineers with BSEEs and at least three years of experience in digital, analog, RF and firmware technology. Itron is also looking for principal engineers with at least eight years of experience in RF design, preferably for commercial radio.
Across the state in Redmond, Universal Avionics Systems Corp. has several openings for double E's, ranging from hardware and software test engineers to avionics systems engineers.
In Bothell, eCash Technologies is also in a hiring way, with openings for senior systems engineers, senior software engineers and senior software applications engineers.
And in Bellevue, AirTouch Communications is seeking senior lead RF engineers, senior field engineers and senior network engineers. |
