Wayward EE lost and lamenting - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: NSCI0T7
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 03:18:43 am
content: So I have my masters in EE, designed phased array RF coils, ultrasound amps, made energy harvesting circuits to charge phones, and dabbled at ATI Technologies (Nvidia) during my internship. Cool, right?But I wouldn't say EE is very lucrative or plentiful, and rarely exciting outside of a university lab. My small town graduates 40 electrical engineers, and all but 2 of them have to leave town to find EE work. I decided that contract teaching wasn't very stable, so now I work an x-ray repair job that can be done with a 2-year community college diploma.Yes, x-ray machines, CT, ultrasound, etc. are very fascinating. But my boss says "very nice theory, now replace this ethernet cable"No passion anymore. Can someone light a fire for me? I see everyone posting projects of electronics they did, but I'm not into hobby circuits. I need something serious with hard physics to get me going.Start a design firm with no meny? Start a high risk design/manufacturing company? Waste 5y to get a PhD??What future could possibly result for someone like me.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 03:47:51 am
content: I'm not sure what you want anyone to tell you. I'd have thought if you were going to take so much schooling you'd have a reasonable idea of the sort of company you'd like to work for? You might have to relocate to where the jobs are if you want a job that is particularly interesting and challenging. Nobody can tell you what you're going to enjoy, you'll have to decide that for yourself.

author: NSCI0T7
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 04:18:32 am
content: Well I can't relocate. So should i ask what other jobs an electronics designer should do?

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 04:21:08 am
content: I've worked with quite a few EE grads who were working as software developers. There seems to be a lot more money overall in software. If you're unable to relocate then it pays to look into what jobs are available in your area prior to spending the money on school. You might be fortunate and find remote work, especially in the post-Covid world.

author: bob91343
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 05:05:59 am
content: Everyone is different. In my heyday as an engineer I loved the electronics but hated the politics and proposals and stresses. So I became a consultant. That worked for a few months but that was all. Then I grabbed the bull by the veritable horns and asked a girl friend if she'd like to go into business with me. She instantly said yes and we opened a retail store repairing electronics of all sorts. Originally we targeted marine electronics but found a more lucrative field in stereo. We had a successful business for about 13 years.I went into engineering again for about a year and then retired at the tender age of about 55 and haven't looked back. I still love electronics but it's a hobby. Now and then I take in a repair job but it's minimal.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 07:58:34 am
content: If you live in a "small town", "can't relocate", and want complex design work with "hard physics", it seems that your only option is to work remotely.You could set up a design consultancy, but without a track record of industry experience it will probably be challenging to find your first customers. If you have strong design skills and can prove it with your university grades and projects, you might be able to find employment with a company based elsewhere? Not being able to work on-site and in the lab will limit your choices and will make you a less attractive candidate for employers. But with working from home being the norm for many companies at the moment, they might be more willing to give this a try if you bring the skills they are looking for.

author: bsodmike
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 10:40:18 am
content: Way back in 2008 I faced the same issue, and what was worse for me was that I couldn't stay in the UK without a work visa. No job, no work visa. No work visa, no job... and no one was keen to hire me. In any case, I decided to return home and I've worked 100% remotely as a software engineer.For me, it was easier as I've always generally excelled in programming. In 2007, I moved to London for my Masters in Mechatronics at King's College, graduated with a Distinction, and while it was impressive (to my Mum at least!) for shits and giggles, I continued to gain as much experience building and managing Cloud services, end-to-end. From nitty-gritty things like Encryption to hard-core DBA skills, I've spent the past decade absorbing and getting better and better with time.I'm now working 100% remote and generally enjoying it. I've just gotten back to setting up my bench lab and the hobby projects I'm working on are really fun...Thought I'd share my experience in taking this journey...Cheers, and all the best of luck to you.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 11:21:14 am
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 04, 2020, 03:18:43 amContract work is the way out. And you don't have to do this fulltime. Just look for people needing an electronic circuit designed and try to get the project. One thing leads to another and depending on how things go you might not need a regular job.Forget about manufacturing. There is no money to be made there. High risk and no reward.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 12:20:51 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 04, 2020, 11:21:14 amYou still get stressed contracting because everything is one your shoulders especially when they are paying the big bucks.Manufacturing.. you may be right. Maybe this is what happened to the uCurrent Gold. A nice device which I actually use professionally. But Dave does not make them anymore. Maybe a lot a hard slog for little return.

author: Warhawk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 12:47:12 pm
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 04, 2020, 03:18:43 amI understand you frustration but let's face the reality. If you want to do high-end electronics professionally you likely need to relocate. Even multiple times.I am not sure if my example motivates you, but I had to leave my home town at the age of 18 to get a degree in Microelectronics. Six years later I relocated again to get a decent job. Again, five years later I relocated again even to a different country with language I still struggle with. But yeah, from an ugly industrial town behind the iron curtain to the heart of Bavaria. With every relocation, I lost contacts, a few friends and took high risk. This way I made it to the semiconductor industry which has been my dream, since I saw the famous Bob Pease Show at dial up internet at the age of 15.If your situation prevents you from pursuing your dream somewhere else you need to improvise but still you need to take a risk. If you're not a risk taker, get a job that pays your bills and do hobby electronics at home. It's fun too.Stop whining, do something, good luck!

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 04:17:06 pm
content: What tech jobs are available in your area? How many courses would it take to have the equivalent of a major in that subject.EE is mostly math and physics plus a very few specific electronics courses. Converting to a major in software probably takes 6 classes and no other 'general education' courses. A dual major, I suppose. You might even be able to swing a Master's without having a Bachelor's. This is typical for Master's in Business Administration (MBA). In fact, it might be worthwhile to look into an MBA. The field of "Operations Research" is very interesting (learning curves, scheduling, optimization, etc).If there are no tech jobs in your area you might be able to get a 'work from home' job but I would bet it would be easier to do for software than for hardware.In the US, we have the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) which provides information on various careers and, to tell the truth, EE doesn't have much growth potential when compared to software. Furthermore, BLS provides regional data - engineering in South Dakota doesn't pay as well as engineering in Silicon Valley.https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htmhttps://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htmLook at the difference in Employment Change. There will be a LOT of jobs for software folks but EE newgrads are likely to have a problem. The field only expands by around 1,000 jobs per year and I suspect we graduate a lot more than that!You can click on the "State and Area" tab to find out that EE in Silicon Valley has a 90th percentile wage of $164khttps://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172072.htmPicking a major because it is fun is to duplicate my path. I have an MSEE in electronics and never worked a day in that field. I spent a lot of time working in the area of electrical systems and, ultimately, project management for all kinds of construction (more like an MBA grad which I am not). I kept electronics as a hobby. I can't imagine the boredom of sitting around designed little circuits for big projects when I could be out playing on a construction site. I never liked drafting board work. CAD sucks and is best left to others. If the company needs a draftsman, they should hire a draftsman. I did my work on the back of napkins.Your degree does not limit you to a particular path, just consider it a cost of entry into any kind of technical or engineering path. A technical degree of some sort is just table stakes. I never actually did much engineering, I bought it. I still had to be conversant in a wide range of topics but that comes with exposure.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 07:11:18 pm
content: I don't know if manufacturing is so much on the way out with all the trouble with China, it would just take a few sanctions. Eventually those crusty cheap PCBs everyone is ordering might be burned at the port. And not all companies are going to work with a Han Solo getting them shipped through a neutral country.. I think there is still a bit of sweet CCP subsidy making that whole thing so appealing (economic warfare).

author: ANTALIFE
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 10:23:37 pm
content: OP are you working on any projects at home, if not then now might be a good time to startAlso is it possible for you to see your current job as a way to generate income to partially fund you hobbies/projects, or are you ready to jump to something new?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 10:45:55 pm
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on October 04, 2020, 07:11:18 pmYou have to take a few steps back. A manufacturer of bulk items may get a 10% margin on the products. The margin between the manufacturer's price and what the end customer pays is around 80%. So guess where most of the money is made... So any way you turn it: manufacturing is the least profitable step in the entire process.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 11:26:07 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 04, 2020, 10:45:55 pmWhich is why the US has out-sourced it. The money is in creating magic, not manufacturing it.A subjective view: The rate of increase in 'magic' dm/dt has fallen considerably since the late '70s and early '80s. I was there when the 8080 was new, 8" floppy drives were $400 and a 5 MB hard drive was a couple of grand. I had a lot of fun writing BIOS code for CP/M on the Z80/8080/8085 platforms. I was an early adopter of UCSD Pascal on the Z80 - I wrote a lot of interpreter code to add various peripherals. Today it's just incremental improvements in stuff that's been around a long time. Cell phones are an example; they are more sophisticated than what I had in the early '90s but it's evolutionary, not revolutionary.The Internet is a counter example! It is as close to magic as anything can get. Whatever I need comes UPS in a day or so. If they closed every brick-and-mortar store in town I wouldn't even notice.EE is boring! I wouldn't recommend spending the time and money to major in something with no growth. Software development or applied mathematics would be my suggestion. I'm becoming more enamored with applied math as time goes on. Large data, machine learning, AI; those are the growth areas. Amazon and Google are the places to work. The good news is that Google has fully embraced 'work from home' - even if it is a long way from Silicon Valley. I could see myself working on a laptop while sitting on a beach in Thailand. The big decision would be Mai Tai or Margarita?I used to be of the opinion that you should find a career that required you to lay your hands on something. You have to be physically present, the work couldn't be out-sourced or off-shored. Now, with WFH, I'm rethinking that. Of course, I'm long retired and this isn't a discussion that involves me.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 11:39:48 pm
content: Become married, get a child and then your value system will change.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 12:34:45 am
content: Quote from: Bud on October 04, 2020, 11:39:48 pmI did undergrad at night, married, one kid, 60 hour workweeks - a lot of things changed, nothing improved.I even did grad school at night because I needed to work for a living. The good news is that it took just a year. It was a lot more fun than undergrad. The MS thing opened a lot of doors.Seventeen years into retirement, things have changed again. This time things have improved.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 12:43:01 am
content: If you want a profession where you can work almost anywhere, become a doctor or lawyer. If you become an engineer, and especially a design engineer, you need to go where the work is. There is just no way around this. If you are flexible about location, you can find interesting things to do in electronics.

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 12:57:06 am
content: QuoteIt's funds, brains and time. Easy to figure out

author: NSCI0T7
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 01:51:23 am
content: Check check and check. That's why I can't just move to whatever city has the most interesting job.And when I talk about manufacturing, I'm not talking about PCB assy. I'm talking about making and selling medical equipment.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 06:17:56 am
content: Replying to original post. I bailed out and went to work in software. Money is good, jobs are plentiful, get to work from home, no relocation so you can establish a family easily. I do the EE stuff at home on my own schedule.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 10:54:54 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on October 05, 2020, 06:17:56 amYou guys miss a big point. With so many of you bailing out of hardware, there is money to be made by good hardware design engineers because there is a shortage of experienced and skilful hardware design engineers out there. I am finding there is heaps of hardware development work that pays well. It is simply the law of supply and demand. I do not have to advertise to get work. In fact I am knocking back work, so I can select good companies that are prepared to pay my rates.Why do you need to move location to do hardware design? Most of my work is done with Altium so I can do it all at home or in the office or at a client's location, just like software development. I also have my own hardware lab. Admittedly, a software "lab" can be very cheap in comparison. Altium is bloody expensive, but you do get bugs thrown in for free.There is however, one huge advantage with software development over hardware development: Software engineers can make a small mistake, fix a line of code in a few minutes, compile and deploy the code, and everything is hunky dory. But hardware engineers can make a small mistake, resulting in a PCB re-spin with a massive impact to delivery time and budget, accompanied by very upset people. Added to that, you think you have finished your design and it fails the IEC 61000-4-2 8kV or 15kV air gap ESD test intermittently. Hardware development can be very stressful. Plus hardware development is always on the critical path in the early days of development.As for boredom, hardware development can get quite tedious compared to software development. I have done both for many years. But I would prefer designing a PCBA any day to cleaning up, debugging and refactoring some clown's undocumented and badly commented software. (I did that on a complicated firmware project for 18 months some years ago. I vowed never again, unless the fee is $300 per hour plus costs like psychiatrist fees).

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 01:18:49 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on October 05, 2020, 10:54:54 amEvery organisation I've ever worked in, or observed from the outside, paid and respected mediocre software people better than the very best hardware people. It has just become a strange norm that software people get paid better. There is never a shortage of capable hardware people. There is only a shortage of people prepared to work for the pay that is on offer. Shortages self correct when the money is right, but the culture in many countries is to not pay what it takes to get the best people.

author: bsodmike
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 02:24:24 pm
content: I got mine about a month back but they seem to be out of stock again!https://www.eevblog.com/product/ucurrentgold/

author: bsodmike
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 02:29:35 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on October 05, 2020, 10:54:54 amVery true! Right now I'm also taking care of my client's entire stack - this involves the deployment and CI stack as well. Fixes are cheap, and there's very little to "break"; it's designed for high SLA and with Cloud providers that's pretty simple.I can really appreciate the stress of being responsible for a PCB design; so much to go wrong and rather than doing `git blame` and applying a patch, that fault is yours and you'll have to own up to it one way or another.

author: Electro Fan
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 02:31:57 pm
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 04, 2020, 03:18:43 amThe good news is that the future could be almost anything.The bad news is the lack of passion is a problem. Without that everything is going to feel like work without much purpose.My suggestion would be to temporarily quit thinking about the next job you want and take some time to figure out what career and life you want. If you could imagine something that would be great at the end of your career, something that you would really enjoy doing when your career was fully mature - what would that be?Start with the goal in mind, rather than the next step, then work backward from the goal. What would you be going just before you retired? What would you be doing 5 years before that? 10 years before that? And so on until you know what the next step should be in the coming year. Break the goal down to steps on the way to the goal.Having said that, this will take some inspection. What are the attributes of the goal in terms of intellectual interests, monetary needs/wants, and so on. This might get you halfway to defining the goal, but it probably won't get you all the way there. Why? Because these sorts of questions are all about you. In order to prosper (monetarily, emotionally, etc etc) at almost anything, you have to add value to something beside you. So, you need to ask, in what field or in what endeavor could you do something that would make the world better for someone else? Someone else might be a company in an industry, or better yet the customers of that company, or someone somewhere that would benefit from whatever you and your company and your industry does.Surely, there must be some areas where you say.... "that's cool, that's good, that's desirable, the world will benefit from that, that will make lots of things go better." Then in those areas that you define as good and appealing, ask yourself "what role can I play, what role do I want to play in that company, industry, field, endeavor?" etc.The point is that looking for a next job is like driving by observing the hood ornament on a car. You don't want a job - especially one that is going nowhere in particular, you want a career and a life. If you spend enough time and commit to figuring out the goal then whatever you have to do next or should do next to put you in a direction toward the goal, that will be a lot more clear and motivational.Once you get this squared away the work might not be easy but it should be self-motivational, and it will take on a momentum of it's own. However, until you get it dialed in there might be some "work" involved. If this process was easy, everyone would be doing it. But it takes some thought and commitment, and sometimes it takes sacrificing something in the short term for the long term. Be careful about the "I can't move." If you are really in a location where the options are so narrow that you can't see how you can ever get to "there" from "here", you might have to change "here." People have moved to new apartments, homes, cities, and countries. If you have to, you have to, and you can - but you are more likely to understand why if you think more in terms of not what you are leaving, but where you are going.In the end, this might be something that very directly uses your EE academic background or it might be something tangential, but it will likely harness at least parts of what you have already assembled - in a way that helps you to your goal (which is not your next job).Yogi Berra said unless you know where you are going you could wind up somewhere else.

author: asmi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 03:22:18 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on October 05, 2020, 01:18:49 pmThis is why I tend to take on projects with a "full stack development" - all the way from the HW into complete SW. And I charge SW rates for everythingIt actually makes the whole process more efficient, because many SW design aspects have implications in HW design, which normally needs to be communicated to HW guys (and vice versa too). And whenever there is a communication, there is always a chance for the loss of data - ranging from innocent misunderstandings all the way to active sabotage. If SW designer and HW designer is the same person, this problem disappears.

author: NSCI0T7
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 05:29:30 pm
content: Someone once told me all the good analog engineers are 50+, and they're going to be retiring soon. I don't know how true that is.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 06:08:44 pm
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 05, 2020, 05:29:30 pmYes, that thought crossed my mind when rstofer presented his data on "1000 new EE jobs per year" due to the (limited) expansion of the industry. Retirement is probably missing from that equation, so the employment perspectives are presumably quite a bit better than the number suggests."Plain old analog" design (as in audio or such) is probably a shrinking domain. But it's also bound to attract very few new EE graduates. So if you can e.g. complement that with RF skills, and if it "floats your boat", I would say give it a try.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 07:39:32 pm
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 05, 2020, 05:29:30 pmIt isn't. Most analog engineers I have encountered have been parked in meaningless jobs because there is no more work for them. Given the chance they do come up with brilliant circuits but those are not in high demand.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 07:48:27 pm
content: The analog engineers I know are all doing software development in their day jobs. Analog is cool, but it's an esoteric skill these days, at least it is perceived that way in the industry. I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find a job as an analog engineer, but having a solid grasp of analog fundamentals is useful in virtually any EE job.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 07:52:40 pm
content: The best analogue engineers I know work in semiconductor companies, developing silicon.

author: Electro Fan
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2020, 08:03:30 pm
content: Quote from: ebastler on October 05, 2020, 06:08:44 pm12,893 U.S. EE degrees in 2017https://www.asee.org/documents/papers-and-publications/publications/college-profiles/2017-Engineering-by-Numbers-Engineering-Statistics.pdfEngineering disciplines that awarded the most degrees in2017 were mechanical engineering, with 30,030 degrees;computer science (inside engineering), with 15,305 degrees;and electrical engineering, with 12,893 degrees.https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htmNumber of Jobs, 2019 328,100Job Outlook, 2019-29 3% (As fast as average)3% of 328,100 = 9,843If EEs start at 22 and retire at 65 and they retire at an even rate, that would be 328,100 / 43 = 7,630 retiring EEs retired in one yearSo, in the U.S. approximately:328,100 EEs (if all employed as EEs?)9,843 positions added in one year7,630 retiring in one year17,473 needed in one year to fill retiring and new positions12,893 graduated in one year4,580 open positions with no EE to fill the positionsEdit: this assumes that there is a need to fill the retired engineers AND add 9,843 new positions; if the 9,843 new positions aren't really new positions but back filling retired EEs, then we would be at about 2k more EEs needed (vs ~13k graduated); probably need to pin down the meaning of "positions added".2nd Edit:From the link:"Job Outlook, 2019-29The projected percent change in employment from 2019 to 2029. The average growth rate for all occupations is 4 percent."- This indicates this is the change in employment which seems to imply not just re-filling retired positions but adding new positions, so the original (pre-edit) numbers probably should stand.Preliminary conclusion: on a need for about 328k engineers the U.S. is about ~5k short, or less than 2% short. Which should be at least modestly good for EE wages but maybe not tremendous. One item not included would be how many EEs come to the U.S. from another country for an EE job, and how many of our total EEs might be taking positions outside the U.S. Overall, looks pretty close to a balance in supply and demand. Having said that wages are only partially a reflection of supply and demand; they also reflect the value of the work being done and most work that needs an EE is probably of at least moderate to high value, just a guess. So, I think EEs are like every other profession; half graduated in the upper half of their class, and despite class rank some perform better than others, and some are fortunate enough to be on high performing teams (companies). So, personally, I think it's a great degree that can enable someone to bring a lot skills to a lot of opportunities - but it's a starting point, not an end point, and it depends on what the degree holder does with a great starting opportunity.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2020, 12:16:15 am
content: First you need to evaluate what your location offers. Are there profitable businesses in your area, or significant government presence? If so, you may be able to work locally. All businesses have problems that need to be solved. Often they are not aware of them. I know a couple of people who have made a career out of walking in the front door and offering to look for solvable problems for free. Then offering to sell solutions to the problems. They often aren't high tech, but sometimes are. Requires a fine sense of value to the customer. They won't buy just to make you wealthy.If you can't make a go of a gig like that, moving or remote work are the only options.You have set up a very tough case, a small town with a large number of EE grads per year. With those criteria I would add that you will have to be very good because you will have lots of competition.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2020, 12:41:59 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 05, 2020, 07:39:32 pmMost electronics engineers in general are parked in meaningful jobs, with meaningless recognition of their value. If you know jack schitt about electronics but am an expert at playing politics, plagiarising, talking BS much of the time including office-speak, and have a humongous ego, you can do really well. Incidentally, one office-speak I hate is "What are the takeaways today?". I once answered, "A dollars worth of chips, two dim sims and one potato cake" (An Aussie version of "a Big Mac, fries and coke"). I hate office-speak, especially that one which will hopefully fade away.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2020, 12:44:42 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on October 06, 2020, 12:41:59 pmThat's an odd thing to object to. Isn't summarising the conclusions of a discussion of value?

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2020, 05:08:37 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on October 06, 2020, 12:41:59 pmThis bothered me a lot less when I realized that the skills you are denigrating are rarer than EE skills. And finding someone who is willing to do them instead of electronics are rarer still, as evidenced by the OP in this column. And while the particular elements you name are not actually of high value to organizations they tend to be associated with skills and behaviors that do have value. For example plagiarizing often turns out to be translating an unreadable, overly long document written by an engineer who hated grammar classes and wanted to get on with "real work" into something intelligible by non-technical types. And few corporate documents follow academia's hallowed traditions of attribution.Economics rules. When supply of those who want to do engineering exceeds demand jobs and/or salaries go down.

author: NSCI0T7
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 09, 2020, 04:13:56 am
content: Thanks for the reflection. I'm now considering going for an MBA. Electrical engineering, you have failed me.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2020, 04:19:22 am
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 09, 2020, 04:13:56 amOh man.Can you honestly say that there is nothing good you can take away from it?

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2020, 04:24:22 am
content: Nothing wrong with that decision, as long as you can honestly project that in a couple of years you won't be posting a similar plaint about management.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2020, 05:47:24 am
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 09, 2020, 04:13:56 amAnd what are you going to do with that? What company are you thinking of applying to work for? Electrical Engineering didn't fail you, you are failing to do what it takes to get a job that utilizes the degree you earned. If you're in a small town and unwilling to relocate then you're likely to be very limited in your prospects. Certainly explore the local industry, decide on a job you want and then get the education you need to get that job. Don't just get a degree and expect a job to materialize out of nowhere and fall in your lap.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2020, 06:28:13 am
content: Quote from: james_s on October 09, 2020, 05:47:24 amI agree. Now is not the time to go back to school, given that we are in the grips of you know, the thing so to speak.Networking is the key. I'm not talking about running Cat5 cables. I'm talking about finding out who near to you has a need you can remedy quickly and efficiently. Build up a trust among your peers and your niche will present itself.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2020, 02:44:51 pm
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 09, 2020, 04:13:56 amIf there are no EE jobs where you live and you don't want to relocate, it isn't EE that has failed you. It just isn't going to happen until your constraints change. I've been retired for 17 years so I have no idea what is happening but I'll bet there are jobs in Silicon Valley or up north in Seattle or Portland. Austiin is another possibility. I might focus on defense contractors simply because the classified work can't be outsourced. But that probably won't happen in your area.Just because your degree is in EE doesn't mean you can't apply your skills (notably math) in other areas. I never spent a day in electronics engineering but I still used my education to make a decent living. I relocated - twice. But I had the freedom to do that.The reason I brought up MBA earlier is that it doesn't tend to have a lot of undergrad requirements. An MSEE program will insist you have a BSEE but this isn't usually the case for an MBA. They may insist on undergrad math but EEs have that covered in spades. You may need to brush up on statistics. An MBA is the most general of post-graduate degrees - there should be applications just about everywhere.OTOH, from bls.gov we can see that job growth is in CS, not EE. How many classes to get a dual major in CS? That's a job that can be done remotely and the idea of Work From Home is becoming permanent and popular.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 09, 2020, 02:50:33 pm
content: People with an MBA are so common it really has no value. You certainly don't learn much in an MBA course that is of general value. Wifey has an MBA from a respectable university, and I followed what she was studying.

author: Electro Fan
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 12:20:30 am
content: Quote from: coppice on October 09, 2020, 02:50:33 pmMust be a lot of people who already knew a lot if they didn’t learn much of general value when they got their MBA.

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 02:53:22 am
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 09, 2020, 04:13:56 amYou say you have some RF experience...lots of defense sector companies love that sort of thing. RF engineers aren't nearly as plentiful as leetcode CS codemonkeys. Cleared work has a lot of benefits, most importantly job security.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 04:23:22 am
content: Quote from: 0culus on October 10, 2020, 02:53:22 amBut probably not in a small town somewhere in Canada. If you want a job like that you usually have to relocate to wherever those jobs are.

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 04:30:22 am
content: Quote from: james_s on October 10, 2020, 04:23:22 amExactly...you move. I would guess a lot of companies would pay for the relocation expenses too, especially if you have harder to find skills.

author: Electro Fan
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 05:47:24 pm
content: Quote from: 0culus on October 10, 2020, 04:30:22 amYep, it would require a move and it would probably be good during interviews to leave out the part about EE having failed the candidate.

author: NSCI0T7
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 06:37:43 pm
content: I can't say it's a good decision, and $60k+ means I should be sure before I start. But when I look at how I want to live my life when I'm 45+, I want it to be helping get medical technologies to market. I don't think society has a lack of engineers with ideas. They have a lack of people picking a technology and knowing a peculiar strategy to get it to the hands of patients that need it.I know this doesn't address the relocation bit.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 06:45:27 pm
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 10, 2020, 06:37:43 pmI've known several engineers who worked in medical electronics, but left out of frustration. Regulations, and the attitudes of the medical people they had do deal with, ground them all down. They all had great stories to tell of bringing real benefits to people with medical problems, but also tales of doing 99% of the work on something, getting great results and being almost ready for market, and then being blocked from actually getting their product out.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 06:54:39 pm
content: I think relocating is a crazy hassle and life change. You would expect a big pay boost or bonus to do that. If you have any sort of establishment at least. Fresh out of college first job kids that don't like their parents are another story. If you have family ties, familiarity and liking.. its hardly worth moving unless the situation is totally dire. Those kids applying for jobs 1 week after graduating are psycho about it.I don't think you will be as satisfied by the 'ideal job position' as you think. Think about the psychological ramifications. 1 good relationship (even a good neighbor) can be worth more then 10 years pay... try living next to a nut like my grand parents did. Or bad neighborhood, etc,. (do NOT trust what your job employer says about 'social life' in the job interview and in the office if you are relocating! do research and go to where you think will be fun/relaxing/etc first. This will be a evil sales pitch that will tell you down town crack-vill is a hot social night spot!!! Also, consider how much time it takes to scope out the place where you are moving, i.e. check the stores, the recreational facilities, parks, etc. Try going at the times you are actually going to not be working to see what the crowd looks like). If you travel far away... you need to make sure you can stay in the area for a weekend to see what its like, and have money.. to actually spend the weekand like you think you are going to spend it when you work.....! Otherwise it will be friday night and you will be like 'well everything around here fucking sucks'.I think basically a job will always irritate to some degree, because of corporate interests being inherently anti-everything you like (at least the over arching ones, i.e. the BOTTOM LINE that comes from financial objectives, which is at odds with people), and that you should have a strong focus on outside of work. IMO easy to ruin your life moving.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 07:09:47 pm
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on October 10, 2020, 06:54:39 pmIf you think its bad for the person getting a new job, it can be far more traumatic for the rest of the family. It can even be impractical if your spouse also has a career tied to very specific locations.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 07:11:42 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on October 10, 2020, 07:09:47 pmgive yourself a raise by getting a vacuum sealer and working on your car yourself then chasing every dollar imo loli think it comes down to being friendly with managers/bosses then being pissed off you can't live like them (its not that great).. I noticed co workers will call clean up services, plumbing services, etc.. because I think they think its classy/high end. At least new employees that are out of college. Well.. they say learning should never stop.. chances are in a bigger company, your learning will slow down massively compared to school. Then you need to learn how to do things to reduce expenses while maintaining quality of life (hard). Not being frugal though. If your job is making you learn things constantly, with high pay, then is when you need to call in services.I would use a RF/high end math class to compare to what 'hard' learning is at work. If it feels like liberal arts, you are not being drained so much that you need everything done and cooked for you.Not saying not living like a baller is great or anything, but its often not worth moving if you are happy with where you are. And usually the job position won't make you happy with life.. it comes down to having time and some money (freedom). But freedom to be in a delapitated empty ghetto is not very great.

author: Electro Fan
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 08:21:34 pm
content: Quote from: NSCI0T7 on October 10, 2020, 06:37:43 pmOk, now you are starting to develop a longer range view. Keep dialing that in and then see what that indicates you should do for a next position, location, etc.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2020, 11:55:09 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on October 10, 2020, 07:09:47 pmWell I wouldn't want to relocate, but I was fortunate enough to have grown up in an area with a lot of tech jobs. I certainly have worked with a lot of people who have relocated from other regions/countries though. It all comes down to a choice, either you go to where the jobs you want are located, or you make due with the jobs that you can find in your local area. Or a third option which is becoming increasingly more feasible is to work remotely for a company located elsewhere.

author: asmi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2020, 04:57:49 pm
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on October 10, 2020, 06:54:39 pmBeing able to go out of your comfort zone is very valuable life skill. The life isn't gonna be all roses and red carpets, sometimes you will have to do things you'd rather not to do, but which will benefit you in the long term. I hate moving as much as the other guy, but if relocation is going to stand between me and an interesting job opportunity, I will relocate without a second thought, especially if that relocation is going to be paid for by the new company.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2020, 05:41:20 pm
content: Quote from: asmi on October 14, 2020, 04:57:49 pmNo idea about your age and family situation, but this decision may obviously depend on others beyond yourself: It may affect the social contacts and friendships of your wife and children; maybe your wife has a great job too; maybe your children have special needs in school; maybe you want to take care of aging parents or parents-in-law who live locally. Your view seems a bit self-centered and narrow. I am guessing you are young and independent?

author: negativ3
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2020, 06:04:39 pm
content: My work covers three continents and may involve being away from home up to three months if the project needs nurse-maiding.The ability to travel at the drop of a hat has it's risks and rewards of course, but life is never boring and is as rewarding as the effort applied.Become an electrical gypsy / roving troubleshooter and see what happens.

author: asmi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2020, 06:05:04 pm
content: Quote from: ebastler on October 14, 2020, 05:41:20 pmUnfortunately I'm not as young anymore, and I got family. But I do bring the majority of household income into my family.