Spotlight - Chris Hii

I lead a team of eight talented hardware engineers and designers in creating products for a wide range of industries. My day-to-day involves high-level solution design, selection of key technologies, technical reviews, meetings with clients (both existing and prospective), and supporting the team.

Even though I'm the team lead, I still love to get my hands dirty with the actual design, including board layout. I'd never want to get away from that part of the job. It's always really satisfying to see the client get what they want and to help bring their product to life.

I would say there are three: the willingness to learn new concepts and technologies, the ability to adapt to different situations and challenges, and the ability to work well in a team or individual setting.

The speed of change and the new technology options that are coming on the market all the time – learning about them and keeping on top of these developments requires time to be dedicated regularly.

Adaptability comes into play because our clients come from such a diverse range of industries. A big part of what we do is learning about not just their ideas and goals but about their industry and the markets they are trying to address. That helps us to do the best designs for them that we can.

Third our office culture is very positive and collaborative. We have a wide variety of people and experience on staff, which is a real strength.

Many of our clients come from non-technical backgrounds and often don't have experience developing and launching a physical product. So, a big part of what we do is educating the client about the process, especially around risk and cost. By the end of design, the client should have a better sense of what designing physical products involves to best meet the needs of their market. Our goal is to leave them delighted with the journey and where the product design has led.

Adaptive because we need to change our flow to match each client's drive. If they want to move fast, we can sprint right alongside them and ramp-up to keep pace. But if a client wants to take things slow—if they want to do more research or do multiple proofs-of-concept—we're happy to match that pace, too.

Determined because I've never seen us give up on anything. I don’t think we’ve ever gone back to a client and said, "Sorry, we just can't do it." And if that means long hours or weekends, we're going to do what it takes to deliver for the client. That really comes from the culture that the company founders have established here.

It's hard to pick just one. It's always cool to see something that you have designed there on a shelf available for sale. I love knowing that the customer is happy, and it's great when they send pictures of events like product launches.

I've certainly learned a lot of technical lessons over the years. But I think that the biggest lesson that's come over time is making sure that you and the client are on the same page of the design and development process. You hear stories about designers and clients who drift apart in expectations or understanding. Then you come together at a convergence point like a milestone delivery or a product demo. If the client was clearly expecting something different, it's going to end really poorly for everyone. So, communication really is key.

I think our broad range of experience, positive company culture and willingness to tackle most any problem sets us apart from other engineering design firms. We've rarely said no to many product ideas unless they were really unsuitable for what we do. So, this has led to working on a wide variety of products for a lot of different industries. Other design firms tend to specialize or have a niche, and I think the variety of projects we take on makes NeuronicWorks not just unique but a better, more creative design firm overall.

What I like most about my job is being exposed to so many different technologies and industries every day. Most engineering positions will give you in-depth exposure to just a few (or even just one) industry or sector. Coming out of school, and then going to work doing design just in one industry, after a few years, I realized that I wanted more variety.

At NeuronicWorks, we get opportunities to work across nearly every industry out there, and that really appeals to me. This opportunity to continuously learn and adapt and to have to be good at a lot of things rather than just narrowly focused on one thing is part of what I love most about this job.

That's easy—my commute! I don't have a very long one, but being able to eliminate that would mean more useful time in my day.

It's hard to see myself not working in some form of engineering (I nearly became a mechanical engineer before deciding on electrical). Still, I would probably have to say some form of professional pilot (airline or corporate), as I love flying. To get a commercial licence and the necessary ratings would be a significant investment of time and money and building many more hours of flight time. But you can become a professional pilot at any age (as long as you’re healthy!), so maybe a second career down the line.

I baked a lemon cake this weekend! People probably wouldn't guess that because generally I'm not the baking type. But I tried it out, and the results were fantastic. It was a very simple recipe, and I was able to make it just with things I had on hand in the house already. If you want to try it out here's the link. Bon appétit!