Application Engineer Position Opening Soon

The Application Engineer will perform a variety of tasks related to addressing our customer’s application of the B&R automation platform (an ABB company):

• Develop and document control application designs
• Program automation applications
• Develop and execute formal test plans and scripts
• Troubleshoot and resolve application issues
• Track and report project status
• Resolve technical problems at customer locations
• Review automation application needs and document requirements
• Estimate implementation effort to develop automation applications
• Create project plans 

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree (BS) from a top tier four-year college or university in Computer Science (CS), Computer Engineering (CMPE), Electrical Engineering (EE), Mechanical Engineering (ME), or equivalent work experience.
• Application development experience in a high-level language, preferably C/C++ or equivalent
• Willingness to climb flights of stairs daily.
• Willing and able to lift 50 LBS when necessary.
• Work locally out of our Cedar Rapids, Iowa office.

Additional Preferred Experience and Interests:

• Motion control systems
• IEC 61131 programming languages (ladder diagram, structured text)
• Real-time operating systems and programming in real-time environments
• Interest in PC- and PLC-hardware applications, mechanical and electrical systems and physics
• Excellent communication skills and strong customer-service ethics
• Desire to work in an international team environment
• Creativity and ability to make decisions
• Project management

Travel is approximately 25%. This includes short notice service trips within the US and Canada, generally in the region (3-5 day duration). The frequency of service trips will vary with specific need. We are working to improve remote service capabilities to limit travel requirements. In addition, some travel will be required for occasional training. A passport is required.

Legal authorization to work in the U.S is required. We will not sponsor individuals for employment visas, now or in the future, for this job opening.

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Focusing experience on a customer service call

I shared this with some colleagues who found it inspiring and I thought it might also be generally interesting to others:

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On a recent trip to Dallas, I arrived at the customer’s business on a Monday morning. They’d been down in production for more than a day the week before. As I walked in, everyone in the shop looked relieved; their shoulders relaxing. They were a smaller shop that depended on their processor for making blanks to run their plasma tables and to make rectangular duct. So, the entire shop was out of commission while that necessary machine was down and essentially inoperable.

I quickly connected with my laptop and let them run the machine for a couple of hours off that. They were elated to learn that this was an available service option. Within just a couple of hours they’d built up enough blanks and ran enough duct to get the rest of the shop back up and running and profitable again.

Those were hardworking people. They were on the floor busting their butts every day in a hot dirty duct shop suffering the elements and rewarded with reduced hours. Not a ballistic owner present voicing concern over profit margins, but real people who share in those ventures. In fact, the operator’s wife was pregnant and actually went into labor towards the end of my trip and he couldn’t make it in that last day. The magnitude of lost work falls to those that are the most vulnerable; the family.

So, on this trip I gained a better perspective of just how important our machinery, controls, and software are, both personally and professionally. I saw a dozen lives with families and mortgages and car payments tightly tied to our ability to provide quality equipment and expedient service.

I used this as a wake-up call for myself and I put together documentation while waiting for my flight back. I wanted to make sure that no one ever has to be affected like this again because of a lack of insight. A point in fact, this document proved immediately helpful with another customer having a similar problem but then being able to function from their own laptop thanks to that document.

I’m sharing these notes to encourage each and every one of us to keep the thousands of lives that depend on us each day in mind. It’s more than just those of us here at the factory and our lives and families. We have many hundreds of installations which multiply that demand on us to continually look for better ways to communicate to one another and make sure there are no roadblocks to continuously improving our products, services, and customer experience.

Best Regards,

John Welty

Joined Toastmasters yesterday

Looking forward to working with the Marion Sunrise group in Iowa. 

I'm looking to improve my communication skills and ultimately plan to do some technical presentations while also working on my leadership skills. 

https://sunrisemarion.org/

SQL Saturday

I had a great day at

SQL Saturday yesterday in Iowa City, Iowa.

This was hosted by the I-380 PASS SQL Server User Group and they always do a fantastic job.

There are SQL Saturday events all over the world and if you haven't been to one and have an interest in all things related to SQL Server and Azure Data Services, you really need to look into these free learning events. The volunteers do a great job and I dipped my toe in the volunteer water by being a room monitor for one of my sessions on CosmosDB.

The icing on the cake was winning an Ember Temperature Controlled Ceramic Mug in the raffle at the end of the day.

Getting Started with Getting Things Done

I came late to GTD and was introduced to it by J.B. Rainsberger.

GTD (Getting Things Done) is a system from David Allen published in his book, "Getting Things Done"

I began slowly with the 2-Minute Rule and started using the FollowUpThen.com service. These two things alone proved to provide immediate help with dealing with my e-mail inbox and staying on top of commitments.

The 2-Minute rule goes like this, "When work arrives at your door, if you can’t avoid it and you can do it in two minutes or less, then do it now; otherwise, schedule it for later."

So the first part is easy... if I can do it in 2 minutes, knock it out and be done with it. But the second part is where I needed better tooling. I've always found it difficult to keep track of things I need to do later. I can focus on one thing for days on end and forget everything else that needs my attention. This was a problem I knew I had but not one that I was trying to solve. I was too busy trying to cope with the problem. It was consuming me.

Enter FollowUpThen.com (or fut.io for short).

I learned about this tool after receiving a post from J.B. called, "Change Your Life One Habit at a Time". In this article, he explains how he used this free service to help him establish a new habit into his routine. I found this to be quite intriguing and signed up for the service.

I found it very useful for exactly the situation J.B. brings out in his article but as I explored the use of this simple tool, I saw it had far reaching benefits for me. When I found something in my inbox that I couldn't deal with in 2 minutes, I would forward it to tomorrow@followupthen.com and sure enough, I would get that email back to me the next day with clickable links to postpone it if necessary. If that reminder was timely, I would take care of it and that would be the end of it.

FollowUpThen gives you the option to use many version of the email address to get nearly anything you want. I can forward to 3pm@fut.io for instance and get that email back at 3pm either today or tomorrow depending on what time I send it.

I can also add one of these in my BCC field on an email. Let's say you need my help and send me an email. I reply, "Thanks for the email. I'll get back to you later today on this." I don't want to forget that I told you that so I add a BCC to 2hours@fut.io and BAM... two hours later... after I'd long forgotten that I'd promised to get back to you, I have a reminder.

This has removed a lot from the back of my mind which would nag me at night and it has also made me more reliable with people I make commitments too. This builds trust and confidence. I can't stress the importance of this enough.

If you want to remind both yourself and the person you are sending the email to, you can put it in the CC field instead. So if I send you an email saying, "Let's talk about this tomorrow at around 3", I can add a CC address for tomorrow2pm@fut.io and we'll both get a reminder in our inboxes an hour before that time.

So the next challenge was J.B.'s post on "Get Stuff Out of Your Head: Now!" This was something I'd seen him demonstrate in his "Worlds Best Intro to TDD" course. I experimented with best ways to accomplish this and have always had a problem with pens and paper. Keeping them handy was always a problem for me and the more I come into contact with paper the less it likes to work when I want to write on it. This has always been an issue for me and must have something to do with natural oils in my skin or the type of paper that I tend to have... maybe the pen. I've tried many things and have always been frustrated by that.

The solution I came up with was the Remarkable Paper eInk Tablet. While this was pricey, it proved to be easy to keep with me, quick to use, never ran out of paper, and I could use it to get things out of my head quickly so that I could review and process those notes (later to become one of my GTD inboxes) later.

Any and all of these things could prove helpful to you if you are wrestling with any of the same issues. When I have some time I'll write up my experience with the David Allen book, "Getting Things Done"

This was when these first few helpful steps were kicked into high gear and started freeing me up to think about what else I could be doing better.

Stay tuned!

My notes on J.B. Rainsberger's "Practical Tools for Playing Well with Others"

Presented by J.B. Rainsberger at www.oredev.org November 7th 2013

https://vimeo.com/78917211

Conversations begin with Intake - See, hear, read

This can go wrong. We can hear wrong, misinterpret, misread.

This is an area we tend to assume isn't a problem but it often is. The gorilla test proves that. While we are focused on one thing we miss other things.

After Intake, conversations progress with Meaning - We decode the signals/symbols.

We have issues with meaning all the time. Same words can mean multiple things to different people and in different contexts.

This leads to arguing with people you agree with.

It's important to clarify meaning.

"Normally when somebody says xxx, they mean this, this, and that…, What did you mean when you said xxx just now?"

We need to establish how close we are to the meaning of the words, identify potential differences and see what we can do about it.

After Meaning we have Significance - Why did this just happen?

Significance has to do with the deeper meaning. The meaning behind the meaning.

Why is the other person behaving this way. Figuring out how to interpret the message.

The last part of the model is Response - After all the first three happen, we have to figure out how to respond to that.

Checking on perception before responding can help. Check intake.

Checking on misunderstanding before responding can help. Check Meaning.

Checking on misinterpretation before responding can help. Check Significance.

What did we see or hear that leads us to conclude our choice of response?

The path between Significance and response is REALLY hard to control.

It's best to assume that this path for others is hardwired and isn't going to chance.

Timestamp: 24:50

One of the ways that you can improve your interactions with people is by assuming that if somebody responded in an inappropriate, unexpected, threatening, unusual way; that that reaction was perfectly sensible, reasonable, and defensible given how they interpreted, understood, and perceived the situation.

Being hardwired, there is nothing we can do about it and there is nothing we ought to do about it. Let's fix the other areas instead.

Misperception is a difference of perception. Misperception is a wrong assumption that our way of perceiving things is the only right way of perceiving them. When there is a difference, it's best not to make a value judgment.

Same with misunderstanding. This is a difference of understanding.

Same with misinterpretation. This is a difference of interpretation.

Because these paths are so quick, at first all we can do with this model is debug a conversation after it happened. But that's a start. It can help to work from the bottom up.

How can we figure out why they interpreted it the way they did? Or understood it the way they did… or what they may have perceived that wasn't intended.

Timestamp: 31:25

It gets even more fun when you are so practiced at this that you can use this to pre-bug a conversation. TDD for conversations.

How might one interpret what I'm about to say?

Maybe I better choose different words.

How well do I know whether this persons understands the word I'm about to use?

Maybe I should try a different word.

Am I speaking clearly enough?

Maybe I'd better speak up or check my phone connection.

Timestamp: 32:40

Things really get interesting as we consider how your response leads to their intake and their response leads to your intake. This can spiral in terrifying ways.

https://www.infoq.com/articles/satir-communication-model-teams/

Timestamp: 41:00

A Few Helpful Tricks

Think of three ways to interpret what just happened… before you respond if you can.

Ask, "What did you intend by that [surprising comment, question, action…]?"

Communicate in E-Prime to reduce judgmental perception. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime)

Warn the other person when you need to say something uncomfortable.

Further reading:

Jerry Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting"

Mark Goulston, "Just Listen"

Stone, Patton, Heen, "Difficult Conversations"

Slide Deck: http://link.jbrains.ca/ptfpwwo-oredev-2013

Interested in Exploring Software Development?

Glad to hear about your interest.

Here’s a link to some free training courses on Pluralsight:
https://learn.pluralsight.com/resource/free-course/free-weekly-course

This is a good resource too:
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/

This one from Microsoft Virtual Academy is free (and perhaps a bit dry): https://mva.microsoft.com/en-us/training-courses/c-fundamentals-for-absolute-beginners-16169

Udemy.com is a good resource I’m told. Here’s a link to their Development section: https://www.udemy.com/courses/development/

My son vouches for Mosh Hamedani's C# for Beginners course: https://www.udemy.com/user/moshfeghhamedani/
He also operates his own site: https://programmingwithmosh.com/

I tend to use Pluralsight.com which comes with a free month to explore it. Scott Allen has authored great courses on Microsoft stuff in Pluralsight. You could search for him on that site and find plenty. He’s got a good teaching style. He’s got a blog site here: https://odetocode.com/

I would also encourage you to become familiar with using git (Version Control Software).

A great tutorial on git can be found here: http://gitimmersion.com/ (It talks about using the Ruby programming language but you don’t need to install Ruby or be familiar with it… they just use Ruby source code files as examples).

There is an excellent free eBook on git too: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2

Git is something you’ll want to use for a lot of things… it’s quite a powerful tool and I’m finding more and more value in it week after week of using it. Quite impressive.

I like to use Git Extensions for Windows: https://gitextensions.github.io/

I believe that will walk you through everything you need but it will depend on git and something like kdiff being installed. I just use their defaults and follow their installation recommendations.

If you run into problems with any of these let me know. I'm happy to help.