Hear from Lead - Industrial Design and UX Researcher in the Client Computing Group, Amruta Ranade, on how Intel facilitated her journey from a non-technical role to a successful career in technology.
Currently, Amruta Ranade has filed 8 patents, with more in the pipeline. However, her journey in technology was quite atypical.
“I am basically an industrial designer and user researcher. In fact, I used to design lifestyle accessories, despite my formal education in engineering almost two decades ago. I came to Intel from a completely non-technical background, without any previous exposure in the semiconductor space.”
From accessory designing to Client Computing
In her early days with Intel, more than eight years ago, Amruta primarily worked on New Form Factors, involving extensive research and development for a category that was not only new to her, but also in a very nascent stage in the industry.
“I was new to the world of filing patents and would often doubt if the work that I was doing was patentable.”
The right nudge at the right time
“The encouragement from my leaders and guidance from some of the principal engineers in our team instilled confidence in me to start by at least submitting the invention disclosure form (IDF), which is used for submitting new inventions to the patent group at Intel.”
Soon after submitting her first few IDFs, Amruta converted most of them into filed patents. In that very year, she received an internal award recognizing her contributions. This was a massive confidence booster, and eventually became the turning point in building her career in core technology.
From ideas to patents
Some of her early patents were around Wearable VR Gaming Vest/Compute, which was built and demonstrated at external forums like Game Developers Conference (GDC). “It was a wonderful challenge to combine the constraints and boundary conditions of some of the components, like thermal solutions, battery packs and connectors, with the free-flowing and soft nature of wearables.”
As she grew within the organization both personally and professionally, the nature of her patents became more technical, with a focus on materials, mechanisms and usability.
Reflecting on the demanding yet fulfilling journey it has been for her, she says, “If I could give my younger self advice, I would assure her that there is no ‘bad’ idea. All ideas have potential if you collaborate with the right people. Share your ideas with domain experts who will be able to see the merit in them and help you develop them meaningfully.”
Discover more about life and opportunities at Intel: https://intel.ly/3yOgsKK
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