S05-E09 Justin is a test engineer at Entegris

Justin, a test engineer at Entegris in Prior Lake, Minnesota, discusses his career progression from working as technician to becoming an engineer. As a test engineer, Justin tests materials and designs using metrology and microscopy. Previously, Justin worked as an applications technician at Optima, where he demonstrated aerosol jet technology to customers. Justin emphasizes the importance of hands-on experience, networking, and building relationships. He advises current students to gain practical skills, pursue their interests, and consider community colleges for cost-effective educational experiences.

The Talking Technicians podcast is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program.

Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation.

Join the conversation. If you are a working technician or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org.

Links from the show:

Episode Web Page:

https://micronanoeducation.org/students-parents/talking-technicians-podcast/

Careers at Entegris: https://www.entegris.com/careers

Transcript

Peter Kazarinoff  0:02  
From MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, this is Talking Technicians. The podcast about technicians: who they are, what they do, and where they come from. I'm your host, Peter Kazarinoff. I teach technicians and engineers at Portland Community College. In each episode, you'll meet a working technician and hear their story. That means real interviews, with real technicians, about real jobs. At the end of each episode, you'll hear actions you can take if you want to be a technician too.

In this episode, you'll meet Justin. Justin is a test engineer at Entegris in Prior Lake Minnesota, near Minneapolis. Justin, welcome to Talking Technicians.

Justin  0:53  
Thanks, Peter. It's good to be here today.

Peter Kazarinoff  0:55  
So Justin, you're a test engineer at Entegris, and that's around the Minneapolis St Paul region. Did you grow up there? And if not, how long have you been in the Minneapolis St Paul area?

Justin  1:09  
Yeah. So I actually grew up, you know, about 90 miles south in Rochester, Minnesota, known for the Mayo Clinic, and went to the twin cities north 90 miles for college, and ended up living here. I've been here about 13 years in Prior Lake in different portions of the metro area.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:29  
So Justin, I wanted to talk to you about both your work as a test engineer, but also some of your previous work as a technician. So could you please just start talking about what is a test engineer at Entegris, and what do you do as a test engineer?

Justin  1:48  
Sure. Yeah, I'll go over that quick test engineer is really kind of specialized lab, just so the engineers can test out their different ideas. They might be considering different polymers for a product, or different plating types, different surface roughnesses, and the test engineer will take that maybe make a machine that opens and closes or rubs things together 1000s lifetime cycles, takes a look at all those with metrology, microscopy, different characterization techniques, and then reports back the findings to the engineer so they can help down select you know their design that is best suited for performance and and cost and such.

Peter Kazarinoff  2:30  
Right - so helping build some of those fixtures, doing some of that characterization work, but previously, you've worked as a technician too. Could you describe what that job title was and what you did as a technician?

Justin  2:46  
Sure. So previous job was at Optima. So they had two technologies, aerosol jet technology, where they make an aerosol control it with a carrier, gas spray. It really fine, down to like 10 microns in size. You can print any material you can turn into a particle that will fit into like a three to five micron droplet. So you can print metals, resistant materials, polymers. You can basically print a circuit board, but not only on flat stings, but on curved surfaces. So that was quite a bit of fun. I worked in the application as an applications technician, so the applications lab, so customers that were curious about the equipment, if they wanted to buy it, they needed proof that it worked for their what they were trying to use it for. So I would try to learn what they wanted to do and try to make it work and ultimately sell them equipment.

Peter Kazarinoff  3:37  
So Justin, in your role as that applications technician. Can you explain a little bit more in detail? What might you do at like, the beginning of a shift, the middle of a shift, and then end of a shift? What might technician expect to do in that role?

Justin  3:53  
Yeah, so I guess you know beginning of the shift, or maybe a week, or something like that. You'll learn about an incoming project. So customers that are coming in, they might be medical, they might be anything, learn about what they're doing. Maybe have meetings going over what they're trying to do, get as much information as possible. And then, you know, a scientist or an engineer might, might come up with hardware or something like that. Give you a list of things to try and go through, and run through those, those different, you know, tests or or running the equipment with certain materials, printing certain materials. And then finally, maybe, you know, end, end of that. After you you make what they're trying to make, you try to test, like adhesion or electrical characteristics, put that into a PowerPoint and then, and then share that with internally, with the team, and ultimately, have a meeting again with the customer, and go over, you know, what we're able to achieve? Safe and see if they're satisfied or not.

Peter Kazarinoff  5:03  
So Justin, as a technician, when you were working there, you worked with a lot of different types of folks, including customers as well as engineers and also some business folks at the company. Is that right?

Justin  5:16  
That's correct, yeah. And that's, I think, the cool part about if you could, for me, applications type area is just meeting all these different customers, seeing what what they do on the inside, learning about all these different things that are going on. Just there's so much there that just taking a peek into what companies are doing was really exciting, I thought.

Peter Kazarinoff  5:40  
So - Justin, I've got a pretty good idea of what you did as a technician, but now you're working as a test engineer. Can you talk to me a little bit about that career progression? How did you go from working as a technician and ultimately now working as an engineer?

Justin  5:56  
Yeah, that's a good question, Peter. I'll try to try to try to take you through the timeline. So as a technician, I went into a two year degree at Dakota County Technical College, which is south side of the metro. Part of that maybe we'll talk more about what that involves. But part of that was a required internship for the fourth semester, and I happened to get in with this optimate company and and really liked it. But I guess I'll go back one step further out of high school, I went to the University of Minnesota for electrical engineering, and I had a family member that became terminally ill, so I kind of left there also kind of thinking about my experience at the University, like I enjoyed high school, but the university was just almost too overwhelming for me. The class sizes were like hundreds, and it just, I don't know it wasn't quite for me at that time, I didn't maybe have the educational confidence. So after all the dust settled and stuff, I thought, Okay, I want to continue on, but I looked at community colleges and found this nanotechnology program, and that was really big boost for me, because the class sizes were small, it was really intimate with the professors and other students, and I think it really built my confidence in school. So fourth semester of that got the internship, but also I kind of built up a confidence in academics where maybe I'll go back and try one class or so at a time. So as I worked in this technician role, it happened to be conveniently down the street from the university. The company was really cool. Allowed me to be flexible and say, Hey, I'm going to leave for an hour. I'm going to class. I'll be back. So I chipped away. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, if people can avoid it, but one to two classes per semester for about nearly a decade, and then, you know, built up experience, technical experience, on how to run equipment, just what type of manufacturing techniques were out there, what companies were doing, and kind of all put that together, completed my four year degree, and then I was able to to kind of get my foot in the door at a larger company as an engineering role. But I will say that a lot of what I use now, characterization, metrology, I learned a lot in my four year but so much of it is from the two year degree.

Peter Kazarinoff  8:24  
Yeah, Justin, let's dig a little bit more into that Dakota County Technical College experience that you had. You mentioned that you learned a bunch of technical skills, and now you use some of those. What are some of the other things that you learned at community college?

Justin  8:41  
I mean, I would say everything from networking, just getting good relationships with other students, working with them on problems, working closely with professors, General, things like that don't seem important when you're first doing them. Size scales, just being able to jump between microns and mill, and when somebody mentioned something in a meeting, seeing, seeing a picture, being like, Oh yeah, I saw that. You know, I don't necessarily exactly know, but I've, I've seen that in a in a textbook, or talked about that. But I think the most important thing is just nurturing relationships. So for my getting in my internship as a technician. I I really enjoyed class, and worked closely with a great professor, Jim Marty, and they had an industry panel board, so working closely with them, he was able to see I was dedicated. I worked hard, good student, and he put me in contact with that company. And then also further along down the line, actually one of the past students from that program, and somebody that I also worked with a little bit had gone into Entegris and been working there, and a job came up and they said, Hey, I know somebody that would be good for that role. You should talk to, Justin. So I think a lot of where I got to is from. The relationships I made with - with people in that two year degree.

Peter Kazarinoff  10:04  
Right - so in addition to technical skills, you also learned a bunch of interpersonal skills and built your professional network. So Justin, when you transitioned from community college to the technician role, how did your life change? What was different once you're working as a technician compared to when you were a student?

Justin  10:24  
I guess it's just for me, it's a lot more fun. Work is just, you know, hands on, try this, try that. You're not necessarily cramming for certain things that you know might not seem like you would use them. There's kind of, you see the rewards real time happen, but also you're, you're taking some of that educational experience and seeing it in in in person, in your hands, with your eyes. I guess it's just a lot of fun for me, just to be busy, be moving, you know, not be sitting in class trying to just be part of, be part of it was, was a good deal.

Peter Kazarinoff  11:06  
And Justin, you mentioned that you worked over the course of 10 years to earn your engineering degree and then ultimately become a test engineer. How did your life change after that career progression, when you became a test engineer?

Justin  11:20  
I would like to say I opened up a lot more free time, but with two kids now it's, it seems like I have less free time. So I was hoping that it would open up, you know, tons of free time for hobbies and such like that. But, you know, I guess it's nice being able to have nights where you say, I'm tired. I'm just going to bed tonight. I'll get some rest, versus, no, I have to complete this, you know, paper project or whatever, before, you know, 24 hours from now, so I need to work on that. No sleep tonight. So I guess it's just a little bit, quite a bit more comfort in life.

Peter Kazarinoff  11:59  
So Justin, we're about to wrap up, but I want to ask you, sort of a question about what advice you would give current students. So you've had a pretty amazing education and career progression, both going to community college and a four year university, working as a technician and ultimately working as an engineer. But if you can think back to sort of before you started that Dakota County Technician program, what advice would you give current students or people who want to transition their careers and work as a technician? What advice would you have for them?

Justin  12:38  
I would say, you know, get hands on time with anything you're interested in. For me, at Dakota County Technical College, we had a scanning electron microscope. We had microscopes, we had force indenters. I signed up. I heard about an intern like a summer lab program to work with high school kids. Just anything you can do to get hands on time, read manuals, and also not just work stuff. I've seen a lot of people hired and whatnot, and just their overall interests get them hired. Like, say they like working on cars they're really mechanical, or they like, you know, messing with CAD software and 3d printing. Kind of nerd out, I guess. You know, don't be afraid to do that and and be yourself going into these interviews, I've seen so many people hired just based on that, and also just relationships with people. I've kind of learned over my time. I guess I was kind of a perfectionist when I first started, but you could do the best work in the world, but if you don't get along with anybody around you, it's almost like as if it would not matter. It's good to almost be relationships people first, before the work is very important. And then for me, what helps me is go running to things that are super uncomfortable, weak points, like public speaking, stuff like that. I ended up going to trade shows and doing talks, you know, literally shaking at the kneecaps in my first ones. And now being able to sit in a meeting room and talk with people and realize, you know, there's nothing really to be afraid of. So just yeah, don't be afraid to jump off a cliff sort of thing? Yeah, I'll say, just from my experience, utilize community colleges, two year schools, I think especially for any classes, lower level classes, almost the first two years of four year programs. It's cost savings, it's a better class atmosphere. It's probably easier to get in and out of just any classes. It doesn't matter. In the end, knock out anything you can at community colleges. I think that would be my suggestion.

Peter Kazarinoff  14:52  
Well, Justin, thank you so much for sharing your story, both at community college, four year school, working as a technician, and working as a test engineer.

Justin  15:02  
All right, thank you. Peter, appreciate it.

Peter Kazarinoff  15:04  
Please keep in touch.

Justin  15:06  
Absolutely.

Peter Kazarinoff  15:14  
Talking Technicians is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program. Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation. Join the conversation: If you are a working technician, or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org. We're always looking out for great guests to share more stories with you.