Which EE fields are in demand?

Stewdogg78

Hi, I have a Bachelor's degree in EE and currently have a non-engineering job. I would like to get into engineering again. I would like to know which EE fields are currently in demand? (power generation, robotics, manufacturing, etc)

Curl

I think they're all in good demand (at least in my area) but the life lesson I learned is that to get into an engineering job you need to have your daddy/uncle/cousin/friend work at the company that can put in a word for you, or else it's sort of like playing the lottery.

sydneyfranke

According to bls.gov, none. Unless you are willing to work oversees for cheap cause that's where all of those jobs are going. Sucks cause I really like my Circuits class (well, sucks for a lot of other reasons).

phyzguy

This is not what I'm hearing. According to this report, the unemployment rate for EEs has dropped to 4.6%, and my friends are telling me there are a lot of jobs out there. This report also says software is the best place to be.

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/news-events...re-engineering

JakeBrodskyPE

If you have a degree in EE, and you haven't found a job doing some kind of engineering work, something is wrong.

Just so you know, the Smart Grid effort has resulted in a bonanza of electrical power engineering jobs world-wide. You should be able to get your feet in at the ground floor and work your way up the ladder for as long as you care to make a career of it.

Stewdogg78

Thanks Jake. I have a real desire for electrical power engineering and all the publications I've read look very encouraging, however, in the south east it looks like a pretty dormant field. Thanks for reply.

JakeBrodskyPE

Utility work appears pretty dormant no matter when you look at it. You need to look at the individual utility web sites and read the positions that are open. Many of them have some rather odd names. They don't always hire "Electrical Engineers" out of the blue. Read about what the various professions are called.

As with many things, there are some rather arcane names for some professions...

huskerwr38

I got my internship without even interviewing because my boss said that they had a hard time finding any EE interns and just hired me on the spot. The head of our EE department at school said that US and most countries are in a severe shortage of engineers. He also said that large corporations, including universities are going to be retiring almost half of their engineers in the next decade. Add in the fact the government is throwing lots of money at "green" tech and the smart grid, I don't think EEs are going to have a difficult time finding a job whatsoever.

Also, I on IEEE I read an article that there is going to be a major shortage of Power Engineers. A lot of universities are gearing their programs towards telecommunications, electronics, and computer engineering leaving power by the way side. They are trying to find ways to recruit engineering students into power by offering scholarships and such.

Bottom line, especially in power, you are not going to have a hard time finding a job. :)

squall211

Power is a good one since a lot of the old timers are retiring and universities havent been producing a lot of grads in that field (but the work might be a bit dull).

FPGA design is a nice niche field with some good opportunities (we always have a hard time finding good fpga designers).

Embedded software is a bit broader and seems to have nice, steady prospects (again, hard to find good embedded people, most of them have EE backgrounds, not CS or SW)

clope023

What about solid state devices or electronic material processing?

squall211

If you're talking about working on the actual processes / materials work in fabs, then that is a very niche field for which you need a PhD.

Think about it like this: How many fabs are there in the world? That's your employment pool.

Most companies nowadays are fab free, meaning they design the circuitry and send it off to a place like TSMC to actually get manufactured. Even AMD spun off their fab as GlobalFoundries. Intel is still in that game, and there are a bunch of smaller fabs that don't work on the cutting edge process nodes for chips that don't need that kind of technology. But yes, very limited field so it is something to consider unless that is your one true passion in life.

JakeBrodskyPE

Perish the thought! The grid is about to go through a major revolution. Remote generation with smaller generation sources and more intelligent load management are running many in the field ragged with effort. The communications and the safety system designs are just some of the many challenges.

Furthermore, motors, generation sources, and plant management systems all require high energy electronics design. This is not just a Grid management exercise but a full sized industrial design issue.

The whole concept of the electrical energy distribution system is about to go through a massive revolution --regardless of what happens to the so-called "Smart Grid" effort.