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In Our Careers 2001 Section: • Answers from the Inside: Q&A with a human resources professional. • Snapshots of the Working World: Profiles of 11 different people and 11 different jobs. • The World's Richest Asians: Billionaires, billionaires, and more billionaires. • Washington Journal: My Life, My Work, My Job • Charts: Top ten lists of the jobs that grew the most, and blew the most. Profiles of real working people: Private Investigator • Teacher • Religious Director • Labor Organizer • Nurse • Robotics Engineer • Forensic Neuro-psychologist • Subagent • Kickboxer • Bioinformatics Specialist • Sex Educator

Chi Sha: Robotics Engineer

Salary: $80,000 and up

Chi Sha is rather reticent when it comes to talking. He would prefer to utilize his time working.

“We have a heavy workload,” explains the 40-year-old Taiwanese American. “Although the rewards are high in Robotics, it is a very competitive profession.”

Sha graduated from National Chao-Tung University in Taiwan in 1982. He moved to the United States three years later and now lives in San Jose. Sha works for a company called Adapt, a manufacturer of industrial robots.

“Our robots are constructed for several purposes,” notes Sha. “They can be used for semiconductors, for packaging precision, or they might themselves build a certain part of a machine.”

Sha has worked in Robotics for 15 years. For the past seven years he has been the Director for Robot Systems in Adapt.

According to Sha, Intel uses Adapt’s robots for loading and unloading hard disks. He also gave an example of the versatility the robots he helps produce have: “A company in Switzerland uses our machines for a completely different reason, to package chocolate.” Going to college and having an engineering background is essential to someone who wants to join Robotics. Sha finds his job to be a great place for Asian Americans. He says that his colleagues are friendly, his job is interesting and it is a comfortable environment to work in. “The satisfaction of building something and seeing it function fully makes everything worthwhile,” Sha said.

A starting salary of roughly $80,000 makes life all the sweeter. If you work hard consistently, says Sha, big bonuses and increases in your salary are usually in order.

There are primarily three divisions in the Robotics department. “I am not directly responsible for the mechanical division, as I work more in the other two sections [software and hardware],” Sha says.

Sha finds his job personally fulfilling. But he warns that Robotics is a very specialized career. “You should be certain that you like this job. Once you are in this technological profession, there is no getting out. A robotic engineer will stick with his work for the rest of his life.”