Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2022, 09:20:14 pm
content: Also they have a link in the article to Mike's Electric Stuff YT channel who is a member hereQuote

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2022, 09:49:59 pm
content: As an opinion article, it's good. I cen nod to a lot of things when I see the "Smombies" walking around.But there's always an upside: the students choosing analog or power or sensor or other technology corners are going to earn alotof money if they play it smart.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2022, 09:59:56 pm
content: If you pay peanuts, you'll get monkeys. One of my mentors once told me that being an EE is a sure way to make very little money. He is right. In the technology sector, electronics engineering is extremely underpaid. You can only make a decent living if you are extremely good at it. It is almost like trying to have an acting career.One of the problems I see is that putting an electronics engineer behind a desk also sets the employer back about $100k in various pieces of test equipment that devaluate at an insane rate. That money eats into the salary budget to pay the engineer!The only country I know off that is creating a steady stream of EEs is China.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2022, 10:20:06 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 18, 2022, 09:59:56 pmI suspect that like acting, the correlation between 'extremely good' and making good money isn't all that close. Luck, politics, managing skills and even ruthlessness are key.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2022, 10:30:04 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 18, 2022, 09:59:56 pmIMO, that's mostly a personality problem of EEs (I suffered from it myself). Salary negotiations are a nightmare for EEs, where idiots get through much better.Intelligent people always have some self-doubt. Idiots don't, they think they're wonderful (aka "Dunning-Kruger").EEs, get a training on negotiating skills! Pay for it yourself. It pays in the end.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2022, 10:31:03 pm
content: At least we have people in universities doing Gender Studies.They will save us all.

author: aeberbach
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2022, 10:47:30 pm
content: From what I see doing software pays much more than anything physical. And the dumber the programming gets, the more money you make. Compare for example embedded C vs. iOS salaries.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2022, 10:51:03 pm
content: I’m a qualified EE but I don’t do it any more. The job sucked. The benefits sucked. The money sucked. The market sucked. I have no sympathy for the current situation. It was self inflicted.I woke up one day realised this was bullshit, quit and wangled a job at a software start up. I had a 4x salary jump, an air con office in the city and was (no joke) knee deep in women’s underwear and whisky within a monthNever looked back. I love the work but the industry killed it.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2022, 10:53:16 pm
content: Quote from: aeberbach on July 18, 2022, 10:47:30 pmI think the problem is they’re both dumb in different ways. However one is seen as a revenue stream and the other is seen as an incidental operating cost for delivery.Always look for things with value added revenue. Hence why I work in fintech on complete bollocks that no one cares about or understands but makes money.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2022, 11:58:31 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 18, 2022, 10:53:16 pmMaybe comparable to the motor car industry with it's body stylists and the engineers that create the drive train and all the other underpinnings. So much of the buying public pay more attention to the former, with the latter being considered an expense that must be tolerated.

author: snarkysparky
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 12:27:05 am
content: Analog electronics is relegated to smaller and smaller portions of the hardware by pin count so to speak. After digitization the math and software guys do the rest.Learn the math and software!!!

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 08:06:10 am
content: It's an amusing irony that it's Intel highlighting this issue and complaining about it; they're as complicit as anyone in the trend for consumer electronics to become less and less accessible to the curious with each passing year.When I was in my teenage years, deciding upon a career path, it was the age of the 'proper' home computer - endlessly adaptable, expandable, upgradable and modifiable by anyone with a soldering iron and the will to do something cool. My first non-trivial project was a device to record and play digital (sampled) audio on a BBC micro; it taught me about address and data buses, multiplexing, decoding, signal integrity, power supplies, device drivers, interrupt handling, and the sheer joy of showing off something I'd created from scratch.Today's young people simply don't have that entry point into the profession. The modern PC is kind-of-sort-of-open-ish in theory, but everything interesting is integrated into a couple of ICs, and just try getting hold of the real, complete, *full* data sheets for those.Looking at you squarely in the eyes without even the tiniest hint of sympathy, Intel. While you're at it, you could start supplying distributors with FPGAs again.

author: AndyBeez
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 09:33:10 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on July 18, 2022, 10:31:03 pmNot forgetting the most popular science subject studied in UK universities; sport science.

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 10:28:41 am
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on July 19, 2022, 08:06:10 amIndeed. Companies want their products to be magic to users, not comprehensible technology. This bites them in the arse much later on.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 10:47:31 am
content: Quote from: snarkysparky on July 19, 2022, 12:27:05 amThat would imply more bloatware.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 10:53:19 am
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on July 19, 2022, 08:06:10 amIt's not gone! Today's entry point is an Arduino, RasPi or any other similar platform. They are the current equivalent of yesteryear's 8-bit home computer.

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 10:56:50 am
content: Quote from: snarkysparky on July 19, 2022, 12:27:05 amThat's the way ham transceivers are going. All SDR (software defined radio). Except for a few parts at the front end such as an RF amp or attenuator and band filters, and the final PA and filtering, the whole thing is a computer / processor. No more repairing of that part for most hams. It's all programming and math filtering once the RF is digitized. A black box.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 10:57:57 am
content: Quote from: madires on July 19, 2022, 10:53:19 amJust google for China robotics park projections...They will more than double their automated park in next decade...Not by chance they already invested in an army of competent engineers that are not trainee idiots pledging for stupid positions..Next decades will speak per si with Chinese industry just smashing the pathetic western markets..Pauland BTW use the chance to google their military grade asset growth in robotics cybernetics and related warfare... western corporations of profiteers is about to be slammed

author: abquke
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 12:14:17 pm
content: I debate off and on about not renewing my subscription to IEEE Spectrum because more often than not it's AI sales pitch gobblygook.EEs are like fabs in that it takes a lot of time from starting construction to productive output. Not favorable in a bubble-to-bubble economy.

author: Gribo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 03:28:05 pm
content: Quote from: AndyBeez on July 19, 2022, 09:33:10 amI thought it was comparative anatomy...

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 05:13:15 pm
content: At present, the shortage of skilled/qualified programmers has driven salaries sky high in some areas, for instance Facebook pays some of their engineers up to $250k (with the penalty that you have to life and work in SF to get that salary.)Will this shortage continue to drive engineering salaries up or will it lead to a stagnation because the interesting tech doesn't get developed to pay for those salaries?Almost everyone I speak to in engineering recruitment says how hard it is to find highly skilled engineers. Recently I saw a job ad for an FPGA engineer (contract) at £80ph - the penalty being no remote work all on site in England - but that's not badly paid at all (yearly salary equivalent would be £144k though I guess it depends on contract extensions etc.)

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 06:31:50 pm
content: Quote from: AndyBeez on July 19, 2022, 09:33:10 amOver ten years ago at a local college where I use to live they were doing things like "nail technician", "varnish technician" and "sandwich technician". There was a class teaching people in their 20's and 30's how to read and write, spell out the names of the months, learning how to make a cup of tea and coffee and in their marketing materials it boasted something completely different which was more like lie so I was enrolled by a provider by mistake and the way I was treated before I left on the starting of that day, "So you THINK! you can read and write but you CAN'T!", I said "excuse me, tell me, what is this in front of you? If I couldn't write I would be bringing in a fountain pen and copying down those sentences of joined up writing quickly in seconds. Whilst the others take a minute struggling to write their own name so I took that as an insult." I left to make a complaint about the claims in the brochure then they said, "it was a mistake and we are sorry", they don't do none of the things and "they will have a "word" with the marketing team.I found something there just called "security". So I asked what access control stuff do you do, I mentioned names of a few including systems and burglar alarms. They had no idea of what I was talking about. They told me that it was qualification to become a bouncer pubs and nightclubs.I had a meeting with the director. He told he did electrical engineering in the 80's at this same place to fix and service televisions and radios and in fact one the first things he did there. He said to me that people are not interested in it anymore, if a television breaks down they find it cheaper to go to shopping, pick up a new television and bin the old set. I was quoted £14,000 for an electrical engineering course which would be 1:1 but could include other people later on if they decided to advertise it.I went to another place, they did programming classes in Java, the teacher apparently left and the had these teaching assistants run it. Before I knew this they subjected me to this stupid confusing test in their computer suite. It was basic stuff like adding up money. With this testing software the units, pounds and pence were not declared £ or P at all. It found it ambiguous. the person running it said they were not suppose to help as it was a test and I should know already. I added the units in and I failed everything. The person running it said it had nothing to do with them as they where there just print out the scores. I went back to the hall and complained about the testing software, they said nothing about it but wrote an equation down and said "do this". I finished it and they couldn't understand how I got that right but failed their test. I said I told you the problems with it. Anyway then I was told that their teacher left all they were were teaching assistants with no experience in computing and they go by a teaching guide. I asked if you inexperienced with no understand of what you are doing why are you here and running this course? No answer to that. I was furious waste of my time.There was Cisco class there too that the department set up a meeting to discuss my needs and it was a con, the person running that wanted £3000. If I failed I would have to pay that again and £800 for every test. He said he can't help me with my needs and condition and they have no duty of care as it was private company within a company contracted private by the college so it was not part of the college of what it looked it. They don't have dedicate room, no hardware or testing as he said they do it "academically" where I "self study". I said that is ridiculous and extortion, I could do this cheaper if I wanted by signing up to Cisco if I didn't need the help. So I go there just to pay you all this money to do absolutely nothing and he sounded very blunt after that is all he had to offer. I overhead him reporting back that "it was too challenging" for me. I should have gone in start an argument. The last I heard from a friend who went there, they did a geography course, It was all shown on Powerpoint through a projector and this is where it gets better, during the exam all the answers were on the back of the test papers and everybody passed.I over heard of a conversation between an engineer and a pat tester about 5 years ago, the pat tester said he was about to retire and this electrical engineer replied, "Yes they are either retiring or dying and there are not many people to replace us. The accountants put a stop all this in the 80's when they decided they didn't need anymore engineers and didn'twant spend money on training and apprenticeshipsto save them money."I found that a bit strange believing that there will always be jobs for electrical and pat testing considering the amount of houses in the UK being built at the moment especially in over crowded areas.

author: cellularmitosis
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 10:34:25 pm
content: Quote from: aeberbach on July 18, 2022, 10:47:30 pmI understand the point you are trying to make, but you chose a poor example. I rarely deal with threads, and never deal with asynchronous programming with embedded C.