General State of the Industry? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Snikwah
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 21, 2016, 04:21:27 am
content: Hi AllI have a few questions relating to careers in Electronic Engineering. Originally, I was just going to run these past Dave only but thought it might be worthy of a robust Forum discussion. It would be good to also hear from Dave on this subject as I am interested in the reasons why he shifted from what appeared to be doing just Electronic Design to now (mainly?) just running the EEVBLOG.My background is in Electronics. I’ve been an Electronics Technician for 26 years (basically my whole career). I’ve owned a company for 22 years. This company was mainly involved in the repair and installation of AV Equipment and Antenna/Satellite installations. Generally speaking, until about 10 years ago, all repairs were to component level and didn’t involve board swapping. In addition to the general repair work, my company also encountered all manner of electronic equipment in need of repair so the work was diverse and sometimes very challenging.In addition to the activities above, I also did numerous circuit designs for both clients and of course for many projects of my own. Although there were never enough hours in the day, what I enjoyed most were the R&D/Circuit Design Projects. That is a real passion of mine. I absolutely love electronics. I basically “live and breathe” the subject, 24 hours a day, and I never tire of it.A few years ago, I shut my shopfront and went solo with the field work. This was all going relatively well until recently. I had a fairly serious accident. I fell 5.7m to the ground. I smashed my left wrist into many pieces (dominant arm). I’m lucky that’s all that was damaged. It’s been repaired (still healing) but I still don’t know what the overall outcome will be in relation to that arm/hand. Following 2 lots of surgery the wrist now contains 3 plates, screws and a bone graph. My guess is (at this stage) a recovery of at least 80% or better of movement and strength is possible.Despite what is hopefully a good prognosis, I’m at a crossroads in my career and hence the reason for this post. At 44 years of age, following my accident I know don’t tend to picture myself on ladders for the remainder of my career.I really want to stay within an electronics based career. I think a career in anything else would prove really boring.What I would like to know is the current state of the Electronic Design (Engineering) industry within Australia? What is the opinion of others regarding the future of this industry? Is it still a worthwhile career path? Does one have to live in a large city for such a career path (I’m in country NSW, Eastern Seaboard)?Dave, why did you move away from mainly doing Design work? Was it just the growth of the EEVBLOG or was it something else such as industry shrinkage?What is the general consensus on the future of Electronic Engineering in Australia?I would really appreciate the feedback of others. I am researching alternative career paths and trying to keep my options open.Thanks.Regards,Brad

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 21, 2016, 11:20:11 am
content: The electronics industry in Australia is in decline and no-one cares except those of us who have electronics in our blood. This is evident by the stagnation in salaries over the past 15 or so years, increased outsourcing to cheap labour overseas by our government, and the closing or downsizing of electronics businesses in Australia. There is more money in civil engineering, "building engineering" or railway engineering. Just look at the crap salaries being offered for experienced, talented electronics people on employment websites such as SEEK.COM - this tells you all is not good. The decent jobs are few and far between.I have an ex-colleague in Wangaratta who left electronics for good after IBM/Bluegum shut down. He was trained in electronics and knew nothing else. He was unemployed for a couple of years until he landed an engineering job with a government country roads organisation as a civil engineer. He is well rewarded financially and has job security working for the government.If you want to stay in electronics and have a real career, consider the EU or even Pommy Land or the USA. Have you considered working remotely for a foreign entity? On the flip-side, there are fewer and fewer people who know much about electronics around - especially analogue, electronic manufacturing techniques - design for manufacturing and design for test, general electronic design and repair. The old bastards who stay around might become more valuable as the talent pool shrinks, unless of course they are age discriminated against by yuppies.One final point: Electronics people are not like Donald Trump or slick salesmen. We don't lie or sell our souls to get ahead. As a result many of us have stalled careers. I have heard it said many electronics people should learn the art of marketing and self promotion by a careers/life coach.

author: Snikwah
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 22, 2016, 12:22:47 am
content: Hello VK3DRBI had a (bad) feeling that a reply/ies would read something like your email. What a real shame for those of us who immerse in electronics. I wonder if others share the same view (I'm guessing they will agree). Does that depress everyone as much as it depresses me??? It's also extremely frustrating.For a country that once had a reasonably thriving electronics industry (including some manufacturing, yes, that's not a typo), we now manufacture squat in comparison to world standards. Again, what a real shame. We have the resources, facilities and talent pool (albeit shrinking as you rightly point out).I think you make a very valid point about us older buggers who started in an era when component level was the ONLY way to repair and/or design something. Even PICs were unheard of back then. I remember back to some basic training on Z80 processors and doing machine language programming. I used to dream of the possibilities. Doing everything at component level (and mostly involving discrete components with the odd integrated part) meant a steep but very valuable learning curve. You don't get that experience anymore.My fear is that someone with such skills becomes somewhat redundant because (some/most) design is mainly modular with cheap project/PIC boards more common than apples. Some users of these boards don't really have a clue as to how they (really) work. They just plug/connect them together and hope for the best. Trolling the odd forum here and there, it's fairly evident that many people don't understand the fundamentals of electronics. Repair work either involves board swapping or totally binning the unit due to the cheap replacement cost.The irony to all of this is that a shrinking industry and talent pool is supposedly meant to not only service/manage/connect the barrage of new technology that hits our shores on a daily basis, but, it is also meant to somehow "lead the way" when it comes to encouraging Australian innovation. It makes no sense to have such expectations of an industry with little to no investment and a somewhat unclear future. I realise that some investment does occur but it's not on a decent scale and seems sporadic at best.Every so often the (Federal) Government bangs on about the need for innovation and investment but I don't see that occurring within the electronics industry itself. Sure there's the odd idea with an offshoot that results in some (local) electronic innovation, but not anything that appears to be on a grand scale and certainly little in the way of decent manufacturing levels.It's strange how the innovation and subsequent manufacturing is simply expected to occur in a country with little Government assistance and in a world where we simply fail to be competitive because we refuse to work for a bowl of rice once a week (no offense intended to other economies/countries, this was me being a bit whimsical).The only way to kick-start our manufacturing (once more) is for major Government investment and assistance. I believe that's what occurred in South Korea and that's what helped the likes of LG and Samsung to grow into extremely large manufacturing companies, eventually dwarfing their Japanese counterparts and giving any opposing Chinese brand a real run for their money.I'd like to hear your thoughts and those of anyone else on this important issue.Regards,Brad

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2016, 01:02:51 pm
content: You are pretty much on the mark. The investment $ required to restart serious electronics manufacturing to be state-of-the-art would be significant and many of the great skills in this are have gone - many of the technical people have retired or moved into other industries. Only with big govt assistance could it ever return, but with the mentality of those at the helm it won't happen. And the pool of money for government grants is evaporating as budgets struggle to balance. The Innovation Nation is a too little, too late. Remember the Knowledge Nation from the early 2000's? It came and went as quickly as Kevin 07's "working families" cliche.The mentality of our government is summarised here:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-12/xenophon-slams-decision-new-army-uniforms-made-in-china/7834566. It is not electronics, but it shows how the government's loyalty has changed from "Buy Australian" to "Whatever is Cheapest".The cheapo Arduino etc boards do cause some concern, but I design medical products and none of that stuff is used. We do chip level PCB design - using PICs and Atmels and a host of other analogue/digital components. For volume products, cost, reliability, risk analysis and performance are important factors. On the bright side, medical is one of the few growth areas the Chinese cannot make in roads too because they have little hope of meeting international standards, like IEC-60601 and IEC-13485 and IEC-62304. But over time it might change as they modernise and learn.Should the true believers in electronics change careers? Some say a change is as good as a holiday. I knew a brilliant engineer / manager on a wickedly high salary who went back to uni to get a degree in social work. He is on a fraction of the pay and he is a lot happier. I once moved out of electronics at IBM for 18 months into corporate process engineering and hated it. Despite the gravy train - I missed the old CRO so I went back to electronics. But I did not know until I gave it a go.

author: Snikwah
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2016, 06:58:14 am
content: Yeh, you are dead right. I've heard of and witnessed similar examples of Government hypocrisy and double standards. Plenty of them actually. One such case occurred in my neck of the woods when a large railway products manufacturer closed down (and hundreds lost jobs) because the State Government (State Rail) decided that the cheaper (and much inferior) Indian made products was the way to go. The old factory site is almost all but a ghost town expect for an oddly located landscaping supplier (it's a long way out of town) using just a fraction of the available real estate. Ironically the same Government body/ies suggest that the public such "buy Australian" and "support Australian jobs". The same Government system then has to potentially support (via welfare) the factory workers that once built them rail products. Talk about bloody ridiculous (and somewhat ironic).I'm really glad to hear that at least some (medical) items are still made here and thank God for standards which offer a degree of protection for some industries. I own about six different standards and carry out my work to meet/exceed those standards. Sadly, my (current) industry is sporadically policed and despite the presence of standards and rules/laws, very few seem to bother following them. This opens things up to cheap "cowboys" running around undercutting those prepared to do it the right way. The result is legacy of poorly installed components with a real risk of hazard by means of electrocution and/or fire. Still, when the odd issue/breach of standards is mentioned to the appropriate authorities, either they don't have the resources to deal with it or simply don't care.You should think yourself lucky that Standards (currently) protect your industry!!! Let's hope it stays that way!!!If forced to change careers to feed my family, I guess I would do it, but on the basis that my "play time" was based around my passion for electronics. Otherwise, a life without the interest and challenge of electronics would be difficult and probably cause a slow but certain brain death. I would prefer not to think about it. Such thoughts are making me feel very off colour!!!

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2016, 09:52:15 am
content: Maybe governments that outsource overseas rather than buying Australian made should be punished by the people. That is, publicly ridiculed and eventually thrown out of office.You make a good point about the grey matter. Most electronics engineers and technicians are deep thinkers involved with complex problem solving. I wonder if anyone has done a survey to see if we are less prone to Alzheimers/Dementia. Maybe not the cause, but the symptoms. Could our wiring of the brain of those who solve complex technical problems be somewhat more intricate and "bulletproof" than that of, say, a sycophant politician who does not know how to use a laptop? Do we indeed live longer because of our enjoyment and deep interest in electronics? I suspect electronics professionals are more prone to having a stroke because they sit all day without moving. A bloke I one replaced died of a stroke in his 40's. He would sit all day just laying out boards, not moving. Deep Vein Thrombosis become an issue on long haul air flights around this time. I bumped in to a fellow ham radio operator at KMART. He had just returned from a short business trip to Hong Kong and dropped into KMART on the way home. He died a stroke an hour later.It might be interesting to see the comparison in employment status, nationality, marriages, marriage breakdowns, volunteering, religious beliefs, mental illness, health, happiness etc, between those who are into electronics as a profession and the rest of general population. I don't think anyone has done such a study. It is obscure enough for someone to do a PhD on.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2016, 10:01:01 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on November 21, 2016, 11:20:11 amEU? Maybe, but language can be an issue in many parts of the EU. Pommy land? There aren't many electronics jobs left there. The USA? Most design team expansion has been moved to India and China, so opportunities in the US are certainly not what they were. Sit down to eat with a bunch of engineers at a conference in the US, and the topic of conversation eventually gets around to how all their jobs being shipped off shore.