Bryant Delgado, RF Applications Engineer, MACOM Technology Solutions, Inc.
I AM... here to learn, grow and help move the industry forward!
What made you want to work in this industry?
I didn’t know I wanted to work in the industry until I got an internship at Wolfspeed with the RF applications team the Summer between my junior and senior year of my undergraduate studies. Before that internship I had little to no experience in the RF field, since my university didn’t offer RF related courses until senior year or even graduate studies. During the internship I developed a solid foundation on RF concepts as well as experience on working in a lab setting testing fixtures and devices. I enjoyed that first internship so much that I focused on taking RF classes my senior year and halfway through the school year I decided to participate in the accelerated master’s program at my university. This gave me the opportunity to take graduate level classes during my senior year that counted towards both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, allowing me to graduate with my masters in 5 years. During my time working towards my master’s I decided to take more RF focused classes and completed two more internships at Wolfspeed with the same RF applications team. During these two additional internships I got more experience working on designing application evaluation fixtures. After I graduated with my masters, I was hired full time at Wolfspeed under with the same team that I interned with. I have now been with the team for a little over two years where I have continued to learn and gain experience in the industry. I’ve enjoyed my work so far in my relatively new career and I look forward to continuing to learn and further getting involved in the RF industry!
What is your favorite part of your job?
I’d have to say the variety of projects that I work on is what I enjoy most about my job. As a RF applications engineer my day to day can vary depending on the current projects I am working on. There are times when I am focused on designing an evaluation fixture for a device to meet certain specs that a customer or the marketing team sets. This process requires me to design the fixture first using simulation software, then physically building it and testing it to make sure it performs as expected. If the fixture is short on the specs then I work on tuning the fixture to improve the performance. Once the specs are met then I create a report to share with marketing and the customer before sampling it out to them. The other part of my job is more customer focused, working on supporting them with any questions or issues that arise. If a customer runs into an issue with our devices or eval fixtures, then I work on debugging the issue and providing potential solutions to them. I enjoy the variety of these two main aspects of my job the most because it keeps things fresh and makes sure that my job doesn’t get too stale from doing the same sort of work repeatedly.
What are you most excited about for IMS2024?
This will be my 2nd IMS that I have attended and being relatively new to the industry I am excited to network with others in the industry as well as to learn about the new and upcoming industry leading technologies. I am most excited for the technical sessions because they give me a chance to learn about the new breakthroughs and technologies that universities, companies and researchers are working on and developing. One of the major goals that I have in my career is to make sure that I am taking time to expand my knowledge. I have this goal so, that I can keep up with the ever-changing industry and these technical sessions give me the opportunity to accomplish that goal.