15 Years of SparkFun
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The receiver of the resume was beyond unimpressed, and took the time to write a 2-3 paragraph response to how unappealing my tone and application was.
I remember it being a sobering and humbling moment, and truly appreciated the time someone took to set a conceited young applicant straight.
Sure would have been nice to move to Boulder, though.
Quite possibly the best two best pieces of advice I have ever received were on how to receive, and how to give, feedback.
For the former, always take critical feedback at face value, and take the time to thank them for it. Assume that their feedback is true, and ask yourself what you could or should change to address it.
Even if the answer ends up being "nothing", it is a very useful mental exercise, and chance to learn and grow.
It sounds like you learned that lesson well. :)
The second is that all feedback you give should be actionable, specific, and kind.
It is shocking how much those two small pieces of wisdom have improved my life over the years.
So if someone who needs to shove something we're doing incorrectly in our faces so we can re-prioritize, and they don't do it kindly, that's kind of abusive, and very imbalanced. In that moment there needs to be acknowledgement and recognition of universal imperfection and vulnerability, and not "you're the worst person in the world right now."
Comparing ourselves with others is incredibly toxic. It makes the condemner think they've truly "made it" (which in itself is a gigantic lie) and get complacent, and it makes the condemned think there's no point in going forward. So it slows both parties down!
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NB. Written because I compared what I was going to say with the two comments that were written, and I decided what I was going to say was more interesting and insightful and would attract more comments. Karma is an incredibly unhelpful digital sugarcube, I don't take it well (ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15634577, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16384194).
Kim Scott wrote extensively about this in her book "Radical Candor" [1]. Do yourself a favor and skip the video snippets and TED talks, and go straight to the book (so you don't get caught up on the click-baity "radical candor quadrant"). This is particularly true if you manage teams - or ever aspire to.
The author is a former Googler and used to report to Sheryl Sandberg during the early days, before going to Apple and working with Jobs and Tim Cook, and more recently with Dick Costolo on Twitter.
This is one of those books I wish I had read when I started my career. It would have saved me from so much pain and mistakes learned the hard way.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Kick-Ass-Without-Human...
There are a lot of good answers here, but I feel compelled to add one more.
Kindness... opens doors. By being kind, your feedback is much more likely to actually benefit the person on the receiving end of it, which is the point of giving feedback in the first place.
Kindness also reminds us to look at not just the things that we don't like, but also at the good, and to give credit wherever and whenever it is due.
Here, for example, I could just have replied with an answer or a link to an article. That wouldn't have been unkind, per se. But you did ask a good question! Other people that read my reply may have wondered the same thing, and so by raising this, you helped all of those other people.
Moreover, in looking back on things, I struggle to think of a time in my life when being unkind was a net benefit to me.
Doing things that don't help me... doesn't sound like a solid strategy for winning. :)
So, in general, I make it a point to Always Be Kind, and encourage others to do the same.
A job at Sparkfun might make me reconsider tho, that company is the bees knees.
Also, I really wish your experience was the norm. It's far to common to spend hour working on a solution to a technical assignment for a job application, and hear nothing in response.
Sometimes what you really need to do is get up and play some Asteroids. Or fix it, as the case may be.
Digi-key has been based in Minnesota since they were founded 40+ years ago. Sure a lot of their parts are manufactured in other countries (just like Sparkfun), but their main distribution center is in the US, and they have thousands of employees working there.
Fun fact, they can take just about any combination of the 1million+ SKUs they stock from order reception to in a box waiting for a truck in under 15 minutes.
Hearing this made me very curious, then sad, as I'm 8953mi ( 14408km) away.
But then I found https://spectrum.ieee.org/slideshow/semiconductors/devices/s.... The tiny little blue arrows on the slideshow weren't immediately obvious!
But that's because MC has a warehouse really close to Atlanta.
Which distributor has a better website?
[1] McMaster.com
I have to add that in the (holy cow!) 30 years that I've been buying parts from Digi-Key either for personal use, my own businesses, or employers, I remember them making exactly three mistakes! Two of which I didn't care about, the third, since the order was for the company I worked for, they corrected immediately.
I can happily live with 3 errors in 30 years!
It was Dr. Ronald A. Stordahl's interest in ham radio that provided the springboard for what has become Digi-Key today.
While in college he assembled and began selling a digital electronic keyer kit for sending radiotelegraph code for ham radio operators. It was called the Digi-Key.
After obtaining his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Stordahl returned to his hometown of Thief River Falls, Minnesota. The keyer kit was discontinued and he began selling electronic components in 1972. The Digi-Key "keyer" is long gone, but Digi-Key has become one of the fastest growing electronic component distributors in the world. We continue to operate on the premise of providing our customers – you – with superior service, focusing on the key areas of product selection, product availability, on-time delivery, and responsiveness.
AND THEN, I had a need for a simple motor-driven CNC-like machine that would drive my film camera around the set, like a small-ish, motion repeatable, crane. Motion Control system, basically, but DIY-I-have-no-idea-if-electricity-will-kill-me stuff. My dudes, let me tell you, the whole process was extremely laborious and extremely fun. Reminiscent of ye olde days of poking around Commodore 64 memory addresses to see what will happen. With microcontroler abundance today and a whole gallery of crap for them, like sensors and drivers and whatnots, you owe yourself to try it out.
Just a friendly reminder, it's a bug that once you catch will fill your house with random electronics junk, oscilloscopes, PSUs and other stuff. Like photography, buying equipment never stops.
In my case, reading datasheets of various ic's was the biggest hurdle. But, after a while, you realize most of them are laid out in a similar way.
With all of that experience, I have even more respect for people like Woz. I have online forums to ask questions. The "grey beards" just had to figure it out ;-)
The author's early point is right, getting hands on is the best way to learn EE and I have no idea why even good schools don't have you build stuff early and often.
I learned a lot.
Do they have a reputation for poor quality? I bought a RedBoard Arduino clone from them last year and it was DOA, as was the replacement (different batches).
I haven't bought a ton from SF, but everything I have worked right out of the box.
https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Tools/SFE-Heaterizer-Ins...
This was a very unsatisfying answer.
The stairs are actually wider than the picture makes it look (wide enough to have people on both side of the oven while carrying it). The tricky part was the corner: the oven was long enough that it had to hang out in the air over the corner as we brought it around. I recall that meant lifting it to shoulder height to clear the railing.
As Ray Kroc is supposed to have said: "The two most important things for success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it."
SparkFun is a great company with a really distinct culture that sits at the intersection of hacking and education.
Congratulations to Nate and the team for going 15 years strong!
When I was in college in Fort Collins I made a quite a few trips for last minute parts to finish my projects and I had a ton of fun when I got one of the 5.00 dumpster dive boxes.
Keep up the good work!
Sparkfun has been pretty vital for a lot of our builds. The ability to know what we're getting, and to have it shipped overnight is a Big Deal.
For a while it was looking like Amazon might replace them on shipping, but shipping has become hit and miss enough that it isn't worth the risk anymore.
Vague and generic is fine.
All I've got is eg bus stop ads with webcams, but that's probably not $100k (...or maybe it is).
Any time you see a brand doing some sort of non standard advertising installation; stuff attendees would walk up to and interact with, that's the type of stuff I'm talking about.
My friend and co-worker built this one almost all by himself (HW&SW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfANs2y_frk
If you have a chance to visit their building [edit: in Colorado, near Boulder], and even to take a class with them, it's impressive and great fun.