Pronouns: He/Him/His
Lafayette Degree & Major(s): Bachelor of Science, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Location: New York, NY
Title: Hardware Engineer
Employer: IBM
Describe what your employer/organization does: Within IBM, I work under IBM Z group which is a family of high-performance enterprise servers designed for mission-critical workloads that demand extreme reliability, security, and scalability. IBM Z systems are widely used in banking, government, and retail sectors due to their ability to handle massive transaction volumes with near-zero downtime.
Please provide a brief overview of your role: As a hardware engineer, specifically a CPU Logic Design engineer, I help with designing and developing parts of the “brain” commonly known as the central processing unit of the IBM Z mainframe high-performance enterprise servers that our clients depend on. In addition to engineering duties, I support mentoring junior engineers and taking part in the broader IBM culture.
What gets you excited to go to work each day? As a CPU designer, getting to work on challenging problems that address the growing technological needs of the clients that use our products is exciting – there’s always something new to work on.
What keeps you up at night as you think about the opportunities (or challenges) related to your work? With the advent of artificial intelligence and the efficiencies that it does bring, there is always a question as to how it may transform the chip design space maybe by automating tasks like RTL code generation, design space exploration, and verification, enabling faster and more efficient development cycles. Instead of replacing engineers, AI tools may be able to augment our capabilities—shifting the focus from manual implementation to higher-level architectural and optimization decisions.
What key strengths are necessary to be successful in entering this career field? One of the key strengths I would say is being able to problem solve – having the ability to take a very broad problem definition and then dissect it enough to be able to define tangible solutions . This being a good skill to have because of the nature of how ambiguous some of the problems are that you may come across. Of course, this is in addition to having some background in hardware description languages and processor design.
Is education beyond a Lafayette degree required to pursue this path? Not necessarily. You would typically need a Bachelors Degree in Electrical / Computer Engineering which the curriculum at Lafayette for ECE covers a majority of the basic concepts that one would need to be able to pursue entry level roles in this career path.
How did your Lafayette experience equip you for success in your career field, especially as an early career professional? One of the best things I would say I got out of my Lafayette education was the ability to problem solve and communicating effectively while doing so. Being exposed to the interdisciplinary education – combining both engineering and liberal arts studies allowed me to become a more well-rounded engineer; one who is able to contribute technically but who is also concerned about how these solutions impact those that interact with the technology.
What specific experiences during your time at Lafayette made the greatest impact on your professional path? The engineering curriculum, specifically citing the senior design capstone project, which was a culmination of all four years worth of engineering courses. Being such a large project really mirrored how it is to work in the industry and that thoroughly prepared me in ways I approach problems and communicate solutions as well as how I manage and propagate blockers of progress .
As it relates to career exploration and development, what is one thing that you know now that you wish you could go back in time and tell your student self? I would definitely encourage reaching out a lot more to alumni or people in companies and industries of interest using LinkedIn. There are a lot of people that are willing to take time to talk to students who want to know more about their careers paths and such; and that connection could even lead you to having someone who can vouch for you for an internship or full-time role at their respective company.
What advice do you have for students interested in pursuing your career field? The hardware engineering career path can be very broad – in the sense that there are many fields within that field that can be possible career paths. What helps here is making sure that you’re able to get internship experience in as many of these fields as possible so you are able to properly narrow down your interests and pursue those interest as you seek full-time employment during your senior year.
What strategies, tools, or other efforts do you utilize to find “balance” or reduce your career-related stress? What works well for me is having a set of TO-DOs for each day of the week so I’m able structure my days and work as efficiently as possible without experiencing burnout throughout the course of the week. But in addition to this , having things to look forward to after work allows for that healthy separation between work and your life outside of work.
How do you enjoy spending your free time when not at work? Audiobooks, volleyball, tennis, traveling, and exploring events / popups across NYC.
What was your favorite spot on Lafayette’s campus when you were a student? One that stood out during my time at Lafayette was Simon’s Cafe – it was a late night sandwich spot that had this really amazing dessert called the “simonutella,” which was basically flatbread with Nutella spread and marshmallows on top, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. It was always a delicious treat after working late in Acopian.
Would you like to connect with Irwin to learn more about his career path?
Mr. Frimpong is happy to connect with students via LinkedIn.
