Bichen Chen, EE’19, works at Meta – the parent company of Facebook – and lives in Menlo Park, California. We caught up with Bichen to see how his S&T degree has helped him in his career.

Tell us a little bit about your job and the challenges and rewards of your work.
Currently, I work as a network hardware engineer on the Meta infrastructure team. We design and build hyperscale data center equipment, such as network switches, servers, artificial intelligent training platforms, storage and ASIC, specifically customized for Meta internal usage.
  
Compared with a conventional hardware system company, the challenge of internal hardware consumption required us to design devices that are suitable for Meta network architecture only. Due to the significant data bandwidth requirement from other business units such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus and Messenger, we needed to design the hardware one or two generations ahead of the industry (in terms of speed) yet maintain the same or even less power consumption. 

What’s the advantage of studying at S&T from your perspective?
The biggest advantage of studying at S&T is doing industry-level research while taking courses. From day one, I was able to deal with the real issues that industry faces. This unique experience allowed me to think outside the box and apply what I learned in class directly to research projects. 

How did S&T contribute to your development as a working professional and as a person?
Internships are a valuable opportunity for students. Most students studying at S&T’s Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory had internships at top high-tech firms such as Google, Apple, Tesla, Meta and Amazon before graduating, and eventually got full-time offers. S&T offers rigorous training and critical-thinking skills that I use every day in my career.