I’ve been a verification engineer for a little over 20 years. None of the people around me know what that means. If your friend or significant other is a verification engineer, you might not know what it means either.

I gave up trying to explain “verification engineer” to my parents long ago; they can barely remember companies I’ve worked for nevermind what I did there. Never really tried with my kids. They see me as a weird basement hacker… which is wrong but that’d at least be easier to explain. My wife says I “work with computers” but only to justify asking me all her computer related questions. I tell friends I work in semiconductors. When they look at me confused I tell them I help build computer chips. If that’s still confusing I change the subject.

I’m bad at explaining “verification engineer”. Unless it’s just me, I’d bet your significant other kind of sucks at it, too. It’s hard to give up on it though because verification is an interesting job; also frustrating; sometimes fun; usually satisfying; kind or love/hate… or maybe like/dislike. It’s a job I wish I didn’t have, but can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.

Anyway, considering I enjoy being a verification engineer about 95% of the time, it’d be nice for my family to at least kind of get it. So I thought I’d take another shot at explaining it to them (and you, if you’re interested).

Hopefully this helps… Continue reading →