started a job as a digital designer

Hi ,

I need advise or reassurance please :

So I started working as a digital design engineer and i feel a little lost as hundreds of thousands of code lines have already been written and i need to cope with this ... so is it normal to feel lost , is there any special advice to deal with this ?

Thanks

I think it's normal. When you start work, you feel you are expected to know nothing about the project, so you don't feel so bad.
But after a few weeks, you feel frustrated because it dawns that to perform incrementally more in your job, you will need to
learn a huge amount. It is like writer's block, and always happens a few weeks into a job. (at least for me).
The solution is to always think of the bigger picture - the code is just one portion of the entire design, and the design is just one
portion of the product and the product is just one portion of the solution etc, and the solution is one portion of the
whole story that will get to the point that money is exchanged and the company makes revenue.
So, don't forget the overall goal and you'll naturally allocate appropriate time in your head to different bits of the design,
and have a clearer idea of the bottlenecks to focus on, maybe a better idea than the project manager.. then that will
make you know which bits of the design to learn and focus on, to get your portions complete.
Of course, this is just a personal theory.. everyone works differently.

Divide and conquer. Don't expect to understand 100,000 lines of code; try to understand individual modules/functions. I assume you are talking about VHDL or verilog code; otherwise you are actually a SOFTWARE engineer and need to run away as fast as possible and get a real job

LOL ... dont worry it's VHDL code ... so

Interesting. sky_123 posted a top-down view; I presented a bottom-up approach. :--)

Hehe whatever works! ; ) I suppose our minds automatically finds a way through the mess - I'm sure if
we told non-technical people that we wade through thousands of lines of information without really knowing
more than a small percentage of it, they would wonder how on earth that is possible too.

I still remember (for me) what I thought was my most important job ever, and feeling
so stuck after a few weeks, wondering if I'd ever make it to month #2.
Even over time, because projects change, to be honest I still get stomach-churning every week even at the
same job, because one remains convinced that others know far more, and I'll get found out for being a slow learner or
something. I guess it's normal, or maybe others are super-confident : )

sky_123 u made my day by this post ) .... may i ask how long have u been in the field ?

Ah, actually I was a software engineer for a long time (maybe 6 years?) : ), but I always had more fun with electronics -
but I suppose it's all "engineering" anyway. So Barry's VHDL experience is more directly relevant actually, and my experience
was of similar issues with thousands of lines of microprocessor code.
I still want to learn VHDL actually, (just got myself a cheap coolrunner board the other day, looking forward to trying it out).

hmmm interehsting question,

I think every one new learner or entrant want to ask but is afraid to ask because of the reasons that sky_123 has posted

Well I also have joined as a Research assistant in a lab where I am the only one to implement the Digital design, and just after graduation when I enter here, sometimes I feel like I am doomed... hehehe... But then constant efforts has helped me for these 3 months... Just an amateur though every time I have a new task, I it seems I am wasting trying to understand the things, but you dont know when you get to know the code.

This sort of thing is really tough but learning experience. So keep going
One more thing make accounts on forum like xilinx and altera as well, read the different posts and their answers, and after some time if you get able enough start giving solutions for very simple questions that you know. You will feel satisfaction and would learn more. Like it is said "Sharing is Learning "