Wim van Houtum started his career in September 1980 at Philips and joined in 1982 the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven (PRLE). He worked as a research scientist at PRLE on topics related to Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) systems like (single-carrier) DVB-T, DVB-C and DVBS, spread spectrum for DVB-RC and Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Systems (MMDS). In April 1998 he moved to Philips Semiconductors Systems Laboratory Eindhoven (PS-SLE) and continued his work on DVB systems as a senior systems engineer/project leader for DVB-S chipset solutions. Later on he became a System Architect Wireless Networking for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) IEEE 802.11, Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN) IEEE 802.15 and Wireless Home Networking systems. Where his focus and interest was on high data-rate communication systems, modulation/demodulation technologies such as Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (COFDM), QAM, QPSK, and spread spectrum technology (e.g. DSSS, FHSS).
In 1999 he was a chairman of the working group: “HomeRF M2T3 Physical layer” in charge of defining the physical layer of the network. He was also for several years involved in the standardization of the high bit-rate versions of the IEEE 802.11b WLAN (IEEE 802.11g) and the IEEE 802.15 WPAN (IEEE 802.15.3). In 2000 he joined again the PRLE to investigate diversity techniques for COFDM systems, especially applicable to WLAN (IEEE 802.11g) like systems in the home environment.
In December 2004 he started at NXP/Catena Radio Design (CRD) as a senior system expert on COFDM based digital radio systems like DRM, DRM+, DAB, DAB+, T-DMB, HD-Radio and SDARS. He was actively contributing to the standardization activities for DRM+. In this activity he was one of the technical editors and reviewer of the new upcoming DRM+ standard. In December 2007 he started to work on (iterative) decoding techniques for non-optimal COFDM systems at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) as a part-time guest scientist, where he worked in close cooperation with prof. dr. ir. Frans Willems. He received the title of Principal System Engineer at NXP/CRD in September 2014.

At the TU/e he became a Digital Wireless Communication Systems Fellow in April 2018. Since July 2020 Dr. van Houtum also became a Wireless Communication Systems Fellow at NXP Semiconductors. Dr. van Houtum holds several patents on communication and information systems related topics.

Wim van Houtum received his Masters of Science (ir.) degree in 1995 and his doctoral (dr.) degree in 2012, both from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Dr. van Houtum werd, in april 2018, aangesteld door de Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) als Wireless Communication Systems Fellow: https://www.tue.nl/en/research/grants-awards/tue-distinctions/.