Electrical or Electronics Engineer career queries

[mynick]

Hello,
I would like to hear from people who have first hand working experience(have been employed) what are they doing(a typical day in the office) on the following fields:
a)Systems Engineering
b)Embedded systems Engineer
c)Robotics,systems and control
d)analogue and/or digital design
e)software Engineering (seems to be a bit popular,but i don't want to waste my time making nvdia software,or those stupid tablets and ipads and the such...because it is temporary and too specific skills,soon or later these products become obsolete,i don't know what they really do... i am guessing)

I could become an expert in making a very specific product or service but in reality useless and out of job when that product or service is no longer in need,because too much focus in something very very specific makes you useless in the long run.

So, what is a typical day in the office and which of the above jobs seem to give you transferable skills to other similar jobs?Plus, which are less monotonous ,boring-repeating the same thing?More fulfiling?

Thanks in advance for the replies,if any...

 

[Floid]

Over the variety of projects I have worked I have at one time or another filled all those roles: design basic circuit cards, VHDL coding, designed and implemented controllers, written driver level software, written full programs for embedded systems, and created system models and simulations.

Any of those jobs have skills transferable to other areas. If you are designed controllers, how are you doing it? These days almost 100% in software so there is strong carry over intro software engineering. If you are designing embedded systems, you are probably doing a bit of software and hardware design... etc.

The typical day at the office depends on the stage of the project. If it is early in a project you might spend all day studying requirements, digging through data sheets and other documentation, and building a conceptual design. Towards the middle of a project you may be actively coding, designing circuits, laying out a circuit card, etc. Towards the end you may spend most of your day testing, debugging, and troubleshooting the design. Throughout this time there may be weeks you spend just doing documentation like requirements specification, design documentation, test plans and test reports.

All those areas have parts that are monotonous and parts that are fulfilling. The key is to find a company you like working at and that you feel gives you a broad range of interesting stuff to do. I have been very lucky in that regard but I know plenty of people who have not.