I am currently seeking a position as an embedded engineer.  A job
location in the Twin Cities region is greatly preferred.  (One
advantage is that it's nearby.  Another advantage is that I can
continue participating in Project Phoenix, an IEEE study group working
on an open source blood pressure monitor.)

I'd like to hear your suggestions on what else I need to learn in
embedded engineering in order to be a truly outstanding embedded
engineer.  Engineering job ads (any discipline/specialty) always
equate proficiency with "years of experience".  As you know, the
relationship is clearly not 1:1, and I know better than to assume that
having 3, 5, 7, or 10+ years of embedded engineering work experience
will automatically make me proficient enough to do embedded
engineering blindfolded.  I want to be the person with 3 years of
experience who is just as proficient as others with 5 years of
experience, not the other way around.

So far, I have picked up on embedded engineering on my own, with the
aid of excellent microcontroller communities like this one.  I thank
everyone who helped me through the various obstacles I ran into, and I
can't imagine how anyone got up to speed on embedded engineering
before there were great online communities like this one.

I understand that I have just barely scratched the surface of the
embedded engineering world.  I know I need to learn more, as this will
make me more productive on the job and give me more material to talk
about in elevator speeches, cover letters, resumes, and job
interviews.

Some highlights of what I've done so far are:
1.  All of the basic stuff in the introductory exercises (simulating,
A/D converters, I/O pins, the open drain I/O pin, disabling LVP so
that the normal I/O function works for that pin) with the PICSTART
Plus programmer, PLUS the things needed for my SWR/wattmeter project
2.  Both Assembly language (through MPLAB) and C (through PICC in MPLAB)
3.  Using MPLAB in Windows XP and in antiX Linux through WINE
4.  PIC16F84, PIC16F72, and PIC16F872
5.  Unsuccessfully trying to use open source software to program
microcontrollers in Linux: I consider the open source software route
(GPSIM, Piklab, etc.) to be in a pre-alpha stage.  I ended up running
MPLAB through WINE.  This setup works in antiX Linux but not in Puppy
Linux.  (I did notice that antiX Linux has a newer version of WINE in
its repository.)

What other embedded engineering skills do I need to learn?  Until I'm
in a situation where something else has already been chosen or a PIC
is not viable, I intend to stick with PIC simply because that's all I
know.  (From what I've heard, someone who knows PIC shouldn't take
that long to get up to speed on AVR, Atmel, etc.)  Some things I'm
aware that I haven't done yet are:
1.  ICSP: So far, I have only used the PICSTART Plus, which requires
moving the microcontroller back and forth.  I know that this isn't an
option for surface mount microcontrollers, and an ICSP setup that
allows a connection directly to the target circuit is necessary.
2.  I2C, SPI, UART, etc.: Most of the ads for embedded engineering
positions mention these standards.

What else should I learn?

-- 
Jason Hsu
http://www.jasonhsu.com/swrwatt.html
http://www.jasonhsu.com/swrwatt-c.txt
http://www.jasonhsu.com/swrwatt-asm.txt
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