My first tech job was a summer of ’82 internship between my Junior and Senior years at Rice at TI at the Sugar Land site southwest of Rice (Houston) working on the logic design of a microprocessor for a big US car maker. I drove the 15 miles to the plant in my brand new $4K Volkswagen Rabbit. Digital ECUs (Engine Control Units) were just starting to be introduced at that time.

The work environment was a large “bullpen” room of small tightly packed cubicles with low glass partitions where one could survey the room and everyone in it from anywhere. It was not a great environment and I vowed never to work in such an environment again. The engineers I worked with were not very happy people, and I don’t remember much about that experience.

However I am a huge fan of teams, especially R&D teams, working together in the same building spending brainstorming time together in front of whiteboard – so paying attention to the team work environment, including adequate cubicle size, wall height, and acoustic isolation is super important.

In modern office environments that are poorly laid out, where there may even be (especially in software startups) “hot bunking” of desks, to maintain their sanity engineers wear headphones/earbuds all the time – essentially creating their own private isolated environment bubble. To me this is a sign of a failed work environment as it dampens both social interaction as well as professional collaboration.

The ECU processor design by TI was in competition with Motorola – and Motorola won.