In my first job after I received my engineering degree, I was designing hardware and writing software for embedded products for industrial applications. I had a simulator for the microcontroller.

Despite a persistent and incremental march toward automation, people are still necessary for much of manufacturing. Perhaps that will always be true for certain segments.

Project quality and product quality are different things, but they are inextricably linked—or they should be. It is possible for a project to seem successful and deliver the anticipated result, only to find out later the product is not what was expected.