They find employment in private industry, or government agencies and contractors, and as support personnel for a wide variety of industries. Over the next several years, the industry expects a shortage of engineers skilled in these areas. With strong training founded in traditional electrical engineering subjects, computer engineers are equipped with the rigorous analytical skills and practical design approaches that allow them to apply principles from circuit design, semiconductor physics, and computer organization to computer hardware design. Additionally, a well-rounded series of courses in computer science topics permits the computer engineer to work in software design and application development. This multifaceted background also prepares the computer engineer to make advances related to computer connectivity and data networking.
Computer engineers are responsible for designing a wide spectrum of products.
They design the fastest supercomputers, as well as the more familiar desktop PCs and work stations. They also are indispensable team members for engineering groups designing computers into non-computing equipment such as automobiles. As computers' presence expands throughout everyday life and they become integrated into an increasing variety of products, the computer engineer is at the forefront of the industry trend to merge computing with communications and consumer electronics - two other growing subfields of electrical engineering. As in other engineering disciplines, computer engineering emphasizes the design of practical, economical systems and finding innovative solutions. The most important preparation you can make in high school is to acquire a solid background in mathematics, sciences, and communications.