Calvin Brown and Jonathan Ting have a lot in common.

Both are recent UT computer engineering graduates. Both work at NVIDIA, a California-based, multinational company that’s a world leader in artificial intelligence. And both credit UT coursework, internships, and the mentorship of faculty for preparing them for their current jobs.

Brown (Computer Engineering BS ’23, MS ’24), whose hometown is Clarksville, Tennessee, is a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) verification engineer.

“Before we actually start creating the real GPUs, we have something similar to a digital model that we can perform extensive tests on to make sure all the logic is sound,” Brown explained. “My team’s job is to test that digital model with various stimuli to make sure the output makes sense and is what we want. My main ownership is one of the generators we use to provide this stimulus to our various models of the GPU, as well as general debugging of any issues we find through said generation.”

Ting (Computer Engineering BS ’22, MS ’24), who was born in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and lived most of his life in Middle Tennessee, is an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) verification engineer.

“In my case, much of the testbench (piece of code used for simulation) is already created, and I’m helping to ensure existing tests stay passing and adding new tests as they are needed. Sometimes that involves modifying testbench code and designing verification strategies to protect the changes that the designers make,” Ting said.

Both men said UT gave them solid preparation for their jobs in AI technology.

“The general structure of the computer engineering program at UT really helped me get into this mindset of developing hardware skills and software skills simultaneously, which is a core aspect of the job,” Brown said.

Brown said his internships—working in software engineering at Garmin during his graduate studies and working at Asurion during his undergraduate years—“were super important in terms of not only preparing me for the work world but also helping me better understand the path I wanted to take in the work world.”

Ting also did two internships during his UT years, including one as a design verification engineer at Texas Instruments.

“It was almost the same role as I am doing now, and I probably wouldn’t have gotten this job without having it on my resume,” he said.

Both men credit faculty for serving as mentors.

Associate Professor Ahmedullah Aziz “gave me fantastic advice related to how I should go about my hardware journey and piqued my interest in other fields such as memory design,” Brown said. He said Professor Jian Huang, his supervisor during his time as a teaching assistant, gave him solid career guidance. And Brown said Professor Garrett Rose, head of the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, provided him with a solid base of knowledge in the field.

“He was both the advisor to my master’s program and main professor of the subject matter I now work in,” Brown said. “Without the three of them, I wouldn’t have made it this far,” Brown said.

For Ting, working alongside Rose led him to where he is today.

“I would not be in this position had I not joined his research group which guided me in the direction I’m currently in, and especially his classes such as System on Chip Design which was the No. 1 most relevant class to my current career,” Ting said.
Rose said the two NVIDIA engineers are great examples for others who’d like to follow similar career paths.

“Both Calvin and Jonathan were very strong students and simply great people to work with. So, it wasn’t surprising when they landed jobs with such an impactful company,” Rose said. “We are very proud of them for the examples they are already setting for other UT students interested in pursuing careers in microelectronics.”