Hello,
I would like to ask the opinion of those who are more experienced and more aware of recent trends in industry + R&D. One thing which comes to my mind recently, is whether it would be useful to master a second computer language beside LV? The other thing in the present is that, I often brainstorm about where I should lead my carrier in the close future?
I am a 37 y old physicist by qualifications (MSc and PhD in physics) but recently I would say, work more as a "technician"/LV programmer in a research center doing some technical physics experiments. This involves a little project management (meaning some paperwork to give reports for the budget responsibles), building up experimental rigs, programming them usually with LabVIEW (otherwise other colleagues manage this part using Siemens platforms, PLCs and PCS7 soft). Also, I supervise ongoing experiments/projects, analyzing data, and writing either publications (or supporting others writing them) or giving reports. So in a nutshell, this is the kind of work environment I am in the last 6-7 years until today, lets say.
Before this part of my carrier, I worked on my PhD topic/thesis from 2006 to ~2010. I learned solid state physics, and the actual PhD work was related to a mainly application oriented topic of non-destructive analysis of steel components used in the industry (Barkhausen-noise). This meant developing measurement equipment mainly for laboratory tests, but also examining available industrial application, and comparing these approaches to the theoretical findings/models in the literature. Beside performing experiments, I developed some simple numerical tools for data analysis using ANSI C, and I did some basic computer simulation work (also C - non-object oriented) to compare theoretical models with my experimental data.
Recently -maybe we could call it "mid-life crisis" ( 😄 )-, I often think about which way I should try to govern my carrier (and also which country? 🙂 ). Do not misunderstand me, I like my recent job, but in some aspects I do not feel enough challenges in it. We mainly benchmark technologies to see if certain methods are viable or not. Some of these experiments involve interesting fundamental research questions, but most of them are "just" looking for performance results of different variants of an existing technique. Building up such experimental rigs are fun, however they do not give me much challenge in hardware management, since the required solutions mostly are standard and repeated many times: measuring/controlling temperatures, pressures, flows, valves, data logging, display, and monitoring, etc.. These projects only require ~medium sized LabVIEW applications to develop, and because I work alone on these (practically I am the only one here with CLD level, or even with CLAD), I lack of any mentoring, so I am also kind of stuck with my present programming skills and style.
Next year around this time I will probably already know whether I stay at my actual work place longer, or not (i mean if the employer offers a new contract or not). If not (or I decide so), I will need to look for new opportunities. To be honest, I still cannot really decide which field would attract me better, or which one is more suitable for me? 🙂
Moving to the academic route back, and get involved in some fundamental research? In this case for sure I would prefer to look and learn some new topic in physics or in a multi-disciplinary field (which is usually more fun). I would even consider to take a 2nd PhD scholarship, to master a new topic (robotics? biophysics?, ... there are just so many interesting hot topics nowadays)...
Or should I (try) to become more a "real" LV programmer, and work in industry? Would I like to program in my full work time? I am not sure...maybe..., I never tried! 🙂 Of course I might find something interesting in industry where the work would involve more R&D and not only sitting at the desk...
To summarize, I think my main problem recently is the lack of mentoring, and pressure to master my existing skills further plus learn interesting new ones. Of course I learned very useful things in the last years here, but I feel I might do more in another place or environment which is more stimulating...?
Anyway, sorry for a bit unstructured/messy "brainstorming" above, and I would get back to my original question: If I want to learn some text-based language beside LabVIEW, what would be more useful for my future? C++? Python? Some other things also in my mind, I see for example at many job adverts that Matlab is an advantage (I know Matlab is more a scripting language)...
It would be also interesting to dig into LabVIEW RT and FPGA deeper, but we do not really use these here (FPGA not at all), so no recent need for such apps, neither we have such HW...
