Find me on LinkedIn
Hi there, I am Russell Valente. I grew up in the greater Boston area, north of the city. I started my engineering journey at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston studying Electromechanical Engineering, a 5 year B.S. program that combines Electrical and Mechanical engineering courses into one cohesive major.
While at Wentworth, I did two co-ops at Teradyne, a semiconductor company headquartered in North Reading, MA. After graduating, I continued working at Teradyne and spent the next 5+ years there. I took a gap year before joining Stanley Black & Decker.
I decided to pursue a Master's degree in Robotics Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. I wanted to wait to start grad school to find the right major for me. Check out the Education page for a list of courses I took. I started out part time, taking one class a semester while working full time. This was a really difficult balance after a few semesters into the program. There was no clear benefit or ROI to adding the extra work and stress to my life. I had to dig deep and answer for myself "why am I even doing this?"
After obtaining my Master's degree, I started working at HighRes Biosolutions where I had the opportunity to start my Systems Engineering journey. I made a positive impression on people in my first role at the company. They were happy to promote me into a leadership position on the Systems Engineering team. I quickly discovered the Systems Engineering role is a lot more complex than I originally thought and provides a lot of engaging challenges, both technically and with soft-skills.