Engineering Computer Engineering Career Paths

[sloan13]

The university I am currently at offers three "concentrations", if that's what you want to call it. They are hardware systems; communications and signal processing; and computer architecture, software and systems.

What is the current job market like for these three areas? Are all the jobs being outsourced??

At a job fair a Siemens guy said they outsource their hardware design, which is what I want to do. It got me worried!

 

[wukunlin]

I suggest you look at a job board and look under the sections you are interested in and see what degrees are being asked for. If there is already a list of companies you have in mind, I'm sure their recruitment people won't mind emails asking your question. Another thing is you can ask when you are working in your internships.

 

[sloan13]

I suggest you look at a job board and look under the sections you are interested in and see what degrees are being asked for. If there is already a list of companies you have in mind, I'm sure their recruitment people won't mind emails asking your question. Another thing is you can ask when you are working in your internships.

Ok thanks for the suggestion!

 

[analogdesign]

Keep in mind, outsourcing doesn't necessarily mean offshoring. There are a lot of small hardware, software, and chip design firms in Europe and North America that do outsourced work for larger companies. With a few huge exceptions (like Apple and Google) the trend is to move away from vertical integration and towards focusing on core business.

I used to work for a well-known semiconductor company. We used to design a lot of our customers' products for them (conveniently full of our chips, too!) so they didn't need a big hardware engineering department. Often we were designing products for other American companies, so this is one case where Americans were outsourcing to Americans. I also was on a team that did a design for Huawei, which goes against the grain, right? Chinese outsourcing to Americans! The world is a complicated place. :)

Hardware design is the most amazing, interesting job I could imagine. I get paid to play around. Sometimes it's hard to meet a deadline but my work is never boring. So many fascinating things to do and keep up with. It's great. I jump out of bed every morning and can't wait to get to work. How many people do you know that can say that?

 

[sloan13]

Thanks so much. I love gadgets so I think hardware/electronic engineering is where I want to be. I just want to make sure I am not going into a dead market.