Vishal Bhartiya — Qualcomm
We bring you Vishal Bhartiya! He graduated in 2020 with a masters in the discipline of Electrical Engineering specializing in communication and signal processing from IIT Indore. Read on to know more about his exciting journey!
Q) Please give a short introduction about yourself ?
My name is Vishal Bhartiya — alumni IIT Indore. I’m a final year student in the department of Electrical Engineering specializing in communication and signal processing and got an off campus offer from Qualcomm.
Q) How did you spend your college life and all the clubs you were involved in ?
During MTech, got exposure to a wide spectrum of fields within electrical engineering as well as interdisciplinary fields like ML/AI. As we only have two years at college, most of the time was spent in taking coursework and doing research projects in labs at IIT Indore. Also, I enjoyed performing TA duties as I was able to help the students and also it helped me to enhance my soft-skills. Tried to enjoy everything that college has to offer from the library to tea/coffee shop to food places.
Q) What was your motivation to dive in this specific field ?
Simply because electrical engineering is such a fascinating field of engineering. I always wondered how important was the discovery of the transistor? I have always been interested in circuits but as I wanted to do a master in communication and signal processing because If involves a good amount of mathematical analysis of the topics and with 5G power on the horizon, all the data-driven things such as AI/ML, smart vehicles and IoT, in general, is going to become so much sophisticated in upcoming years that it is going to transform the way we experience technology. Final year thesis completed on Deep learning on FPGA/other heterogeneous platforms. Ph.D. was out of the question for me cuz of several personal reasons.
Q) Tell us something about preparation about your profile ?
Profiles I was aiming to was mainly in DSP and embedded_AI/MLrelated because of my CSP background and my final year thesis. There is a crossover of Signal processing/wireless communication with Circuits and systems together driven by gpp such as C/C++. The CSP coursework is more focused on preparing a student for high-quality research. So to get myself industry ready, I had to work beyond my normal CSP curriculum and prepare myself as per the requirements of a core ECE industry. So apart from the CSP I also learned the Circuit and systems basic flow-focusing more toward FPGA prototyping. So by the end of my M.Tech, I gained good expertise in a range of things such as Advanced Signal processing, Image processing, CMOS VLSI design flow. Design through hardware descriptions languages like Verilog/VHDL. Basics of verification using system Verilog. Writing programs in C++/C for single and dual-core ARM-based platform is necessary if want to work in DSP domain.
Q) What was the selection process of companies ?
>Qualcomm (off campus offer)
Profile : Audio System (DSP)
There were 4 technical round followed by an HR round. Each technical round lasted a good 50 min — 1 hr. Questions mainly were from wireless Communication, Digital signal processing, C programming.
>Marvel Semiconductor(No offer ::on campus interview process)
Profile: SoC verification profile.
Found it difficult to answer a few problems from Static timing analysis as this was more related to VLSI.
>Mentor graphics(No offer as vacancies got froze for which I was in process of interview :: off campus)
Profile::Name not mentioned but was high level synthesis(Digital design using C++ and tool) for AI/ML related stuff
Questions were descriptive type covering Analog and digital circuit, Communication systems, Signal processing and C++ OOPs concepts and programming.
>Volvo (No offer after HR Round ::On Campus )
Embedded profile
Telephonic on campus->F2F Bengaluru Technical and was about 2hr process.
Questions basically on embedded system and C questions and projects.
Q) What was your first look as in work ?
In my experience, Qualcomm is one of the best company you can work for. Great Orientation and great people to work with. Even the oldest person/manager will have great energy. people work with passion and the company has excellent policies and a well-elaborated HR department. You have an excellent work-life balance. You are encouraged to come up with new ideas for research and patents. Managers are very approachable. A family culture. Within a week I was meeting with top managers in the company and getting all kinds of support. Transitioning from college to work culture was very smooth. You never stop learning.
Q) How did you spend your time around ?
<Don’t have much to write here :) >
Always trying to learn more about the new and upcoming technology, the company has great study material/videos/seminars to attend to. Team Lunch and Outing happen very frequently. We always try to celebrate every tiny moment of joy. I personally feel apart from technical knowledge topics like sociology, philosophy, etc should be explored as well cuz they help us to be a better human being. so that’s what I do in my free time. Hyderabad is a nice place to live. It does not have crazy traffic like Bangalore.
Q) Finally, what are your suggestions and learnings from your experience ?
While research-oriented learning narrows down the interest area, job-oriented learning broadens it. An Electrical Engineer who has a specialization in Communication and Signal Processing following traits are industry required. A good Understanding of CSP topics and good programming skills in C/C++. Good practical knowledge of writing applications for ARM(single and Multicore) based platform. A lot of companies hire irrespective of specialization. So to increase the number of prospects in the semiconductor industry, one should learn all the basic requirements for Digital VLSI such as Verilog or VHD, OOP through C++, STA, and knowledge of tools as much as possible. In addition to that, system C and System Verilog are a plus.
We thank Vishal for sharing his experience and hope that it for helps other students preparing for similar roles.
