Land of opportunities: CNY corporations offer a variety of jobs for engineers

From The Post-Standard, Syracuse
by Teresa Melnick

Major area corporations have good news for engineers. They all agree that Central New York is rife with opportunities for employment in a wide range of engineering disciplines.

Lockheed Martin, an advanced technology corporation, has an international reputation for excellence in aeronautics, electrical systems, information systems and global services, and space systems. They are one of the prominent area companies actively seeking engineers across all technical disciplines, including electrical, mechanical, and software engineers.

"Lockheed Martin in Syracuse will hire more than 100 engineers in 2008 to address attrition and areas where we need critical engineering skills," says Ellen Mitchell, director of communications and public affairs for Lockheed. And for those still in college, "We have accelerated co-op and intern hiring for college students. We are hiring as many as 50," says Mitchell.

Jeanette Tancredi, director of human resources for Marquardt Switches, echoes Mitchell's optimism about growth in the engineering field.

"There are wonderful opportunities for engineers here in Central New York," she says.

Marquardt, whose American headquarters are located in Cazenovia, manufactures and sells a variety of switches for power tools and appliances, as well as automotive applications. Because Marquardt is continuing to expand and grow, Tancredi says they are always recruiting engineers to fill positions in many areas including industrial, design, electronic, manufacturing, and quality control.

One problem Tancredi sees in the hiring of engineers is that other area corporations have similar needs, which creates competition among companies for qualified engineers. This is good news for anyone with an engineering degree who wants to stay in the Central New York area, or for engineering students deciding where to land an internship or where to find employment after graduation.

The Syracuse area offers plenty of opportunity with corporations like Lockheed and Marquardt. Sensis Corporation and Syracuse Research Corporation are two other international companies that are always interested in engineering talent.

Sensis Corporation was founded in 1985. Syracuse remains headquarters for the privately-held company which now has offices around the world working to offer innovative solutions for defense and security systems, air traffic control, airline and airport operations management, and data integration and distribution.

"We currently have over 75 openings posted," says Peggy Dudarchik, senior vice president of human resources at Sensis.

"Sensis hires across a wide variety of engineering disciplines, including systems, software, hardware, mechanical, test, and field," she says and explains that the majority of engineers at Sensis are systems and software engineers.

"We are finding the most challenging engineering role to fill is systems engineers." Dudarchik adds that radar or aviation industry expertise is a plus for anyone applying to Sensis.

And so is the ability to be flexible. "We look for people that thrive in an unstructured working environment that encourages staff to move from role to role and explore new projects, responsibilities and skills," says Dudarchik and explains that Sensis Corporation has worked hard to create a company culture that empowers employees to do rewarding work and to step outside of their traditional roles and pursue what's interesting to them.

"Right now at Sensis, we're able to offer our folks the experience of working for both the aviation and defense industries," she says.

"An engineer could work on critical airport safety surveillance technology for customers like the FAA technology that keeps our friends and families flying safely. Or they can also work on counter IED technologies that protect our troops in the field."

Jim Holland, executive vice president of administration at Syracuse Research Corporation (SRC), sees a rise in engineering job growth in Central New York.

'However, qualified candidates are becoming increasingly hard to find as there are not enough candidates graduating in the high technology fields. SRC alone has hired over 200 engineers in the past few years and the company plans to hire that many more in the next few years."

Syracuse Research Corporation, recently voted one of the best companies to work for in New York State, is an independent, not-for-profit research and development organization in the fields of defense, environment and intelligence.

"SRC, in a nutshell, is an innovative company that develops solutions to problems of national significance. We are extremely selective in hiring," says Holland, and adds that SRC currently has positions available for mechanical, software, radio frequency design, electronic warfare and radar systems design.

"Growth in these engineering fields will be steady and ongoing for the foreseeable future."

Engineering disciplines are more varied than many people may realize. There are the familiar fields like electrical and mechanical, but there are also some little known areas such as the radio frequency engineers Holland mentions.

"Radio frequency engineering is known to be a very difficult and highly specialized field," says Holland.

"These engineers deal primarily with electronic devices that are designed to be used within the radio frequency spectrum. They are heavily focused on the design of receivers, exciters, and transmitters that are related to radar, communications, and electronic warfare systems-ultimately, ensuring our nation's safety abroad."

But if engineering disciplines are specialized, they are never stagnant or boring. "At SRC we expect each engineer to be dynamic. We give very challenging assignments with real world problems to our new hires, as well as to our interns," says Holland.

"Our philosophy is to give a lot of responsibility to bright engineers and see where they go with it. Experience has shown if a highly motivated, talented engineer is given challenging work in an area they are interested in, it's a win-win situation."

For more information on engineering opportunities with the above corporations, visit Lockheed Martin at lockheed jobs.com; Marquardt Switches at switches.com; Sensis Corporation at sensis.com; and Syracuse Research Corporation at syrres.com.