What to expect as an electrical engineer?

[BoostedArrow]

I'm currently doing my bachelor in EE and will do my master in a year or so. The university I'm going to is quite high ranked in europe and globally (if you wanna know I'd tell you in DM). EE is quite a broad field but Chip/Circuit-Design and FPGA-Programming look interesting to me rn.

Is anyone else in this field of work?
What are your experiences? (In terms of career opportunities, salary, etc.)
Any advice?

 

[BackInTheGame78]

I'm currently doing my bachelor in EE and will do my master in a year or so. The university I'm going to is quite high ranked in europe and globally (if you wanna know I'd tell you in DM). EE is quite a broad field but Chip/Circuit-Design and FPGA-Programming look interesting to me rn.

Is anyone else in this field of work?
What are your experiences? (In terms of career opportunities, salary, etc.)
Any advice?

I have a friend who was an EE that now transitioned to a Software Engineer. I can ask him some of these questions and post his responses

 

[BoostedArrow]

As for the hiring process, learn software tools in depth. Some are free, but don't hesitate to pay monthly if the price is reasonable. You can put an online class certification on a resume. This holds more weight than just listing it as "X with Y years experience," even if it's from a no-name institution. Your resume needs to glitter and sparkle nowadays. Your first big barrier to overcome is now third party recruiters, which know absolutely nothing. Then it's HR, who also know absolutely nothing. Then it's high level managers, then some assessment tests, and then your competency and character will be finally enter play in the hiring process. Should also add: throwing in keywords for the ATS and getting your resume professionally read isn't clever. Everyone else already does this.

For salary, what you see on glassdoor will not be offered until your 30's. There's a strong downward push on salaries in almost any STEM industry, as those in STEM are usually agile enough to switch skillsets quickly for in-demand positions (or the companies just hire globally from infinite poeple). Most engineering colleagues I know started off underemployed with 60% of industry standard pay in a stepping stone position after an extensive job search. I did not, but I would attribute this to a moment of wild luck (as well as spending a few thousand dollars and six months working for free).

Consider joining makerspaces and makerfairs. Not all are good. If it's just a room of 3D printers, it's not the best. This is a good networking spot. Projects you do there are small potatoes, but are actually hands on with real freedom. Enjoy it while you can. Idk what zoomers do. If not this, then find its equivalent.

Posting proof of software skills on social media is smart. I'm not sure what EEs use these days, but a good example for MEs would be to create an over the top or engine in CAD that runs well and post it on Instagram. For optics, simulating how light bounces around in a triptych or doing ray tracing for jewels in famous royal crowns works. Something flashy that proves you can use the tools you don't need training.

Daily life is usually in front of a computer in an open office. The manufacturing or applications portion will likely be in another country. Get good at ticking manager checkboxes. Performance specifications or bugs will be emailed to you by another department. Your weekly assignments will usually be data driven. There will likely be an AGILE workflow. You may only see the product a few times ever in select meetings. These jobs usually require some travel, especially for new hires touring the HQ. Have an international passport up to date.

Pick ambitious friends in university with a loyal spirit and keep them close. You will rely on each other for employment during the next ten years. If you get a connection, get one of them in on it and share resources. The industry is too competitive to be an individual. At least two friends should come from upper-middle class backgrounds with wealthy parents. Don't be shy, they know what's up and will help you out if they like you (as someone else also carried their parents up back in the day). If you're paying for software or it's hard to setup, host a server and let them (and only them) join to use it for free.

Can you join some kind of diversity program at your university? Even if you're not a diverse female, can you still somehow get in and leave with a leadership position for your resume? This significantly boosts you and may be, today, the single most important factor in getting hired for big companies. I've lisened to managers vent about getting scolding meetings with HR multiple times because the company is demanding diveristy be hired. No explanation is good enough for HR. They will keep the posting up longer than it needs to be and add extra hiring steps in order to raise the chances of one of these applicants appearing. The minute a diverse / female engineer shows up, they get an opportunity no matter what skill level they have. If the job requires real skill then the company will gladly pay for a second engineer to get hired, but the second guy needs to be extra skilled to compensate for the other hire. You will at some point get ghosted and find out your dream job was given to a woman with less engineering experience than your girlfiend (been there).
Lots of people are complaining about this, and I've personally seen this practice happen at my old job. They eventually pressured my manager to go to a segregated job fair to get that diveristy. The new hire never caught on, almost killed two of us (no, she didn't get fired), more than doubled our workload, and someone very skilled needed to be hired to take the pressure off of us. Is there a way to pretend you're hispanic or arabic, possibly trans? If so, try it. If you pay a $140 fee, you can renew your passport with a different gender on it. No questions asked. I personally got stuck at this barrier really hard where I used to live. It took over two years of sporadic work and above-average ghosting rates from recruiters to realize what was happening, especially when every important institution was telling me the exact opposite was happening. It led to a long gap in my resume / experience that I never recovered from (on top of other misfortunes).

Today, I struggle to find steady work and have strongly considered dropping STEM altogether. When I do get work, it pays very well, top 10% income for my age bracket, but it's finished in less than a year and then it's back to the never-ending job search and depleting my savings.

I'm honestly not sure how to give advice here. The more the economy and culture change in this direction, the more the average person loses agency. I recognize that good advice from just ten years ago will today lead you on a wild goose chase. I don't think it's right to give younger people the impression that bad outcomes are always preventable with enough willpower. If it's cheaper to lay off EEs and open an office in Malaysia, they're going to just do it. And having a six pack won't save you. Most often the case, the ones who made that decision will be people you have no access to.
The older gens don't understand this and will feed the younger gens bad advice. Or, more commonly, just blame them for society-wide misfortunes. "Of course Merk will fire all their contractors each year to rehire college grads and oversaturate the industry! It's your own fault for being unemployed because you started a degree in biochemistry when the field was in demand! You idiot!" etc.

Damn bro, thanks for writing all this.

Are you working in California? The job market there seems quite saturated to me, so probably tough there. Here in europe there's surely some competition but I think it should always be possible to get a job, since there's a need for IT/Tech guys.

I know about HR, therefore I plan to write directly to head engineers when possible.

I could pull the diversity thing off. I have two passports, one EU and one non-EU. I'd have to renew the EU-passport though. And since my grandpa was half spanish half italian I could play the italian or latino card lmao. I don't know how much that'll help though. Here diversity is more about women than about minorities.

I get that times and especially the tech-world is changing rapidly.

I should add, many companies learned engineers need big blocks of uninterrupted time. But the average engineer today has many more conference calls than in the past. Meetings are scheduled at peak focus hours like 10:30-11:00 and managers count this as only 35 minutes of lost productivity but it's more like 100 minutes.

Oh boy tell me about it. A friend and I are doing a project at a company rn. And the supervisor there loves to make meetings at 10:00 and talks for like 2 h straight.

Either switch gears fast (if salary is performance based) or put more energy into the meetings instead of engineering (if it's buddy buddy based). Higher up managers always need sort, snappy emails that are replied to quickly. They're just managers, technical details are irrelevant to them and they're counting on you to think for them. If they were once in a technical role in the past, that way of thinking is usually long gone for them.

What do you mean by that?

 

[BoostedArrow]

I have a friend who was an EE that now transitioned to a Software Engineer. I can ask him some of these questions and post his responses

I'd love to hear them. I was also thinking about switching to SE, bc of the money. But EE is just so much fun tbh.

It’s an exciting field, I sell software for engineers and EE’s are at the forefront of innovation. It’s a field that will always be in demand, especially as many tech companies are bringing chip design in-house.

The fun part of being in hardware is that you have the opportunity to work for a startup. Think Zoox that got bought out by AMZN, with a bunch of equity options.

I hope so.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

I'd love to hear them. I was also thinking about switching to SE, bc of the money. But EE is just so much fun tbh.


I hope so.

Don't do it because of the money. You won't make it far that way.

 

[The Duke]

I have a BSME and spent 20yrs as an engineer. I was very fortunate to design some really cool things(military vehicles, severe service trucks, racecars, large mining equipment). I've got many friends in the engineering world from all disciplines. Done a little electrical, structural, civil, and hydraulic as well. Most of my time was spent in the corporate world tied to a manufacturing facility working for American corporations and a Swedish company.

What to expect? Its a great career for the right person. If you have an open mind, you will be able to do whatever you want if you work for the right company. If you get bored doing one thing, its very easy to move to something different.

The money starts good, but its easy to get topped out. To make more money you have to move into management or change companies. Its usually pretty stable work although cyclical. When the business hits a down turn, they usually kick the weak and lazy ones out the door first. If you are a top guy you will have great job security.

As an engineer, you can have a good work/life balance. Its only as stressful as you make it.

If you aren't good at policing yourself, self motivated, and staying organized with your projects then you won't be a good engineer. Although you will always have a boss, you have a ton of freedom.

My favorite time in engineering was when I was part of and Research & Design team. I was on a team of 6 engineers with a project manager, and a material purchaser/secretary. We had our own private office away from everything else, separate operating budget. Had a small group of technicians assigned to us and a big shop to assemble and test what we designed. We kept out of the politics, all of the stupid meetings, etc.

The trade off was we had a ton to accomplish in a short time period. It was high profile and high expectations. I worked a lot more hours, but it was very enjoyable. I also got a lot of notoriety from that project. It opened many doors for me in the company.

A lot of engineering work is getting farmed out to engineering companies in India these days. You'll probably have a small team that does work for you like making drawings, schematics, etc.

I don't know how "hands on" you are, But if you don't have the desire or skills to get on some machine or out in the factory and trouble shoot the circuit boards/operating system, software, etc you designed then its not for you.

I was very fortunate to have the product I designed in production right outside my office. I always worked at engineering facilities that were connected to manufacturing. Its far more interesting that way, and you end up knowing the product far better.

There will be so much opportunity, and you will be able to do whatever you want. Thats the cool thing about engineering. If you get bored, you can change it up and do something else as long as you are willing to keep learning.

 

[BoostedArrow]

No problem.



The decision making power and salary + benefit incentives will either be more engineering / R&D focused or more management and executive focused. It depends on the company. Sometimes it's more sales or marketing focused (eg. Apple). Sometimes more legal focused (eg. IBM).

If it's management focused, office politics and getting good with higher ups matters more than technical ability. In the worst case I've seen, one colleague practically carried the company and did most of the work. When he got the boot, the company's entire productivity in that department dropped down to a whopping 21% of its original output (!) and layoffs had to happen. The way to advance was to become extremely buddy buddy with higher ups and six figure employees would often be friends of the executives. The company underpaid its technicians but gladly paid $2 million to various friends to give presentations on the AGILE workflow and change protocols around (which actually made things slower). This company wasn't really paid by what it produced but rather mostly collected money from investors (and had plenty of it). One technical worker knew what was up, so he got to where he was by having dinners with the executives and such. He was fired in 2020 for political reasons (executives were big SJWs and in-your-face-Jewish). For the lone technician that carried the team, he also got fired in 2021 for political reasons, and what makes his story sad is that the executives would constantly make fun of him for being a good workhorse for such little pay. If you're in an environment like this, then it's better to just brown nose higher ups and treat the technical aspect as secondary. Higher ups will also care a lot less about technical aspects (and may even see them as nerdy, in a bad way), so communication with them needs to be brief and lack technical details. They will usually give you more freedom to solve engineering problems on your own, but they will constantly be butting in trying to change your workflow, try new software, or focus on safety each time one of the executives goes on a business trip or reads a marketing book. They're more annoying, but they often don't understand what you're doing which can give you room to experiment (eg. one coworker setup a workstation with power supplies and breadboards to simulate signals going in and out of the product, management would have never approved if he pitched it, so he just did it anyway and they didn't really care).

If it's R&D focused, technical ability really matters and engineers will usually be in competition with each other to be top dog. The senior technicians get rewarded very well with benefits, salary, and decision making power. Other engineers will sometimes try to sabotage or disagree with each other to get these benefits. Cliques will form. Get in on these cliques if you can, and spend time with them outside work to talk about technical projects. These engineers will typically be proactive, knowledgeable, and will spend their off-hours getting better at their jobs. For these companies, what usually matters more is the one who can "save" something. eg. cost is significantly reduced by a redesign, a contract going poorly is saved because people stayed late, a large bug has been solved, etc. This will matter more for advancing in your career than being the quiet one who diligently does his work. However, if this is your personality and you're more introverted, this type of workplace will be better for you because senior engineers have decision making power and are pretty good at telling management to back off from annoying their juniors.

If you have these 10:00 meetings with managers, it's usually a manager focused company, as seniors would have already pressured them to make earlier or later meetings if they had decision power. For these situations, either be really good at meetings and buddy up with managers to advance in that company or get really good at switching gears back to work quickly. Some coworkers will usually goof off before/after a meeting like this for some time to bring their focus back to solving problems and concentrating on things instead of people. It's a hard transition for many people. Try to minimize that buffer time as much as possible if you'd rather go down the technical path. If you're in a management focused company and want to switch to an R&D focused one, eliminating this buffer time quickly will help you finishing something faster than your coworkers and you can claim it as primarily your achievement when switching jobs later.

May I ask you where you've been working? In california?

Do you think it's easy switching to management?

 

[BoostedArrow]

I have a BSME and spent 20yrs as an engineer. I was very fortunate to design some really cool things(military vehicles, severe service trucks, racecars, large mining equipment). I've got many friends in the engineering world from all disciplines. Done a little electrical, structural, civil, and hydraulic as well. Most of my time was spent in the corporate world tied to a manufacturing facility working for American corporations and a Swedish company.

What to expect? Its a great career for the right person. If you have an open mind, you will be able to do whatever you want if you work for the right company. If you get bored doing one thing, its very easy to move to something different.

The money starts good, but its easy to get topped out. To make more money you have to move into management or change companies. Its usually pretty stable work although cyclical. When the business hits a down turn, they usually kick the weak and lazy ones out the door first. If you are a top guy you will have great job security.

As an engineer, you can have a good work/life balance. Its only as stressful as you make it.

If you aren't good at policing yourself, self motivated, and staying organized with your projects then you won't be a good engineer. Although you will always have a boss, you have a ton of freedom.

My favorite time in engineering was when I was part of and Research & Design team. I was on a team of 6 engineers with a project manager, and a material purchaser/secretary. We had our own private office away from everything else, separate operating budget. Had a small group of technicians assigned to us and a big shop to assemble and test what we designed. We kept out of the politics, all of the stupid meetings, etc.

The trade off was we had a ton to accomplish in a short time period. It was high profile and high expectations. I worked a lot more hours, but it was very enjoyable. I also got a lot of notoriety from that project. It opened many doors for me in the company.

A lot of engineering work is getting farmed out to engineering companies in India these days. You'll probably have a small team that does work for you like making drawings, schematics, etc.

I don't know how "hands on" you are, But if you don't have the desire or skills to get on some machine or out in the factory and trouble shoot the circuit boards/operating system, software, etc you designed then its not for you.

I was very fortunate to have the product I designed in production right outside my office. I always worked at engineering facilities that were connected to manufacturing. Its far more interesting that way, and you end up knowing the product far better.

There will be so much opportunity, and you will be able to do whatever you want. Thats the cool thing about engineering. If you get bored, you can change it up and do something else as long as you are willing to keep learning.

I also love to design stuff and be hands on. In the project we're working on, we did a lot of CAD, assembling and testing and it was a lot of fun.

May I ask you where you've been working geographically?

Is it easy to switch to management later on?

 

[The Duke]

I also love to design stuff and be hands on. In the project we're working on, we did a lot of CAD, assembling and testing and it was a lot of fun.

May I ask you where you've been working geographically?

Is it easy to switch to management later on?

Definitely easy to get into management. Do a good job managing your projects, get along with people, actively participate in meetings, design reviews, etc. Most engineers would rather work with parts and pieces vs. people! Managers go to a lot of meetings.

 

[BoostedArrow]

I was not working in California.

I don't think it's easy for someone technically inclined to switch to management. Different mindset. If you got into the field because you love troubleshooting and taking things apart then you have to give up your passions to a large degree. Once people enter their 30's and have kids, they will push themselves to a managerial role because it gives them more time for their families. Holding meetings doesn't require big blocks of time. Younger workers may also have an edge over them due to just coming out of university and being more used to learning fast, so that's another reason.

However, to simply become a manager and get the job title is not too challenging. You have to be good at communicating between groups of people, good at resolving interpersonal conflicts, and good at figuring out what the people higher up want most and delivering on it. I'd say if you have more self-driven initiative, senior engineer is a better path. But if you have more obedience and are more agreeable then management is better for you.

A good resource to read on this topic is the first few chapters of the E-Myth Revisited. Technicians and managers are naturally at odds. The technician wishes the managers were gone so they can work on their passions in peace, but the administrative side of a business starts to get unkept and profit takes a backseat to the enjoyment of the discipline if technicians are in charge.

I'm more of a technical guy. But my parents also run a business, so I've also an inclination of doing management.

I think I'll do engineering first and switch to management later on, I also like sometimes to try new things.

I'm also somewhat agreeable, although I try to work on that a bit. I thought managerial types are more disagreeable and 'sociopathic'? At least Jordan Peterson says so.

Most of the executives I work with at large semiconductor companies have been with the company 15+ years and started out as engineers.

Staying too long at a company is sth. that is often adviced against. Mostly bc. you get way more paid if you switch jobs often.

 

[itouchyou]

Low pay relative to your peers who went into finance/tech

Cuck lifestyle where they ask you to get your PE so you can stamp drawings and accept liability for said drawings for the rest of your life and if you make a mistake potentially get sued 20 years later

 

[BoostedArrow]

Low pay relative to your peers who went into finance/tech

Cuck lifestyle where they ask you to get your PE so you can stamp drawings and accept liability for said drawings for the rest of your life and if you make a mistake potentially get sued 20 years later

What's PE?
I assume that's just in the US the case and not in europe.

 

[itouchyou]

What's PE?
I assume that's just in the US the case and not in europe.

Professional Engineering license. Used to stamp/seal/approve drawings. My company started to ask me to be that person and I found several legal loopholes that prevent me from doing it, fortunately.