Experience Requirements Overview

  • Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed
  • Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.
  • Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).
  • Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Education, Training and Experience

Required Level of Education: Master's Degree

Related Work Experience: Over 1 year, up to and including 2 years

On-Site or In-Plant Training: Over 3 months, up to and including 6 months

On-the-Job Training: Over 6 months, up to and including 1 year

Detailed Work Activities

  • Direct design or development activities.
  • Devise research or testing protocols.
  • Schedule operational activities.
  • Design industrial processing systems.
  • Select tools, equipment, or technologies for use in operations or projects.

Work Values

Achievement

Occupations that satisfy this work value are results oriented and allow employees to use their strongest abilities, giving them a feeling of accomplishment. Corresponding needs are Ability Utilization and Achievement.

Working Conditions

Recognition

Relationships

Support

Independence

Tasks

  • Create schematics and physical layouts of integrated microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) components or packaged assemblies consistent with process, functional, or package constraints.
  • Investigate characteristics such as cost, performance, or process capability of potential microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device designs, using simulation or modeling software.
  • Create or maintain formal engineering documents, such as schematics, bills of materials, components or materials specifications, or packaging requirements.
  • Conduct analyses addressing issues such as failure, reliability, or yield improvement.
  • Plan or schedule engineering research or development projects involving microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology.
  • Propose product designs involving microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology, considering market data or customer requirements.
  • Develop formal documentation for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices, including quality assurance guidance, quality control protocols, process control checklists, data collection, or reporting.
  • Communicate operating characteristics or performance experience to other engineers or designers for training or new product development purposes.
  • Evaluate materials, fabrication methods, joining methods, surface treatments, or packaging to ensure acceptable processing, performance, cost, sustainability, or availability.
  • Refine final microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) design to optimize design for target dimensions, physical tolerances, or processing constraints.
  • Conduct harsh environmental testing, accelerated aging, device characterization, or field trials to validate devices, using inspection tools, testing protocols, peripheral instrumentation, or modeling and simulation software.
  • Develop or file intellectual property and patent disclosure or application documents related to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices, products, or systems.
  • Conduct or oversee the conduct of prototype development or microfabrication activities to ensure compliance to specifications and promote effective production processes.
  • Conduct experimental or virtual studies to investigate characteristics and processing principles of potential microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology.
  • Devise microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) production methods, such as integrated circuit fabrication, lithographic electroform modeling, or micromachining.
  • Develop or validate specialized materials characterization procedures, such as thermal withstand, fatigue, notch sensitivity, abrasion, or hardness tests.
  • Validate fabrication processes for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), using statistical process control implementation, virtual process simulations, data mining, or life testing.
  • Demonstrate miniaturized systems that contain components, such as microsensors, microactuators, or integrated electronic circuits, fabricated on silicon or silicon carbide wafers.
  • Manage new product introduction projects to ensure effective deployment of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices or applications.
  • Conduct acceptance tests, vendor-qualification protocols, surveys, audits, corrective-action reviews, or performance monitoring of incoming materials or components to ensure conformance to specifications.
  • Develop or implement microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) processing tools, fixtures, gages, dies, molds, or trays.
  • Develop customer documentation, such as performance specifications, training manuals, or operating instructions.
  • Identify, procure, or develop test equipment, instrumentation, or facilities for characterization of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) applications.
  • Develop or validate product-specific test protocols, acceptance thresholds, or inspection tools for quality control testing or performance measurement.
  • Oversee operation of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication or assembly equipment, such as handling, singulation, assembly, wire-bonding, soldering, or package sealing.
  • Consider environmental issues when proposing product designs involving microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology.
  • Design or develop energy products using nanomaterials or nanoprocesses, such as micro-nano machining.
  • Design or develop industrial air quality microsystems, such as carbon dioxide fixing devices.
  • Design or develop sensors to reduce the energy or resource requirements to operate appliances, such as washing machines or dishwashing machines.
  • Design sensors or switches that require little or no power to operate for environmental monitoring or industrial metering applications.
  • Research or develop emerging microelectromechanical (MEMS) systems to convert nontraditional energy sources into power, such as ambient energy harvesters that convert environmental vibrations into usable energy.

Work Styles

Achievement/Effort

Job requires establishing and maintaining personally challenging achievement goals and exerting effort toward mastering tasks.

Persistence

Initiative

Leadership

Cooperation

Concern for Others

Social Orientation

Self-Control

Stress Tolerance

Adaptability/Flexibility

Dependability

Attention to Detail

Integrity

Independence

Innovation

Analytical Thinking

Data Source: This page includes information from the O*NET 28.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. This page includes Employment Projections program, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.