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Everyone I know that was in EE falls into two camps basically: 1. Became web developers 2. Work in Defense or some other regulated industry that has protectio

Everyone I know that was in EE falls into two camps basically: 1. Became web developers 2. Work in Defense or some other regulated industry that has protections from being outsourced to China

bnetd 2y ago
Is there a somber write-up anywhere as to the future of EE in the West?
- ecshafer 2y ago
  I don't know if there is a somber write up. But from what I have heard from a lot of people, is that jobs designing and making say PCB boards and electronic circuits just don't exist. They are all in Shenzhen. Those American firms that have American engineers still, seem to all involve flying to those factories to help fix problems, and are dead end jobs. At least thats my impression.
  - brickfaced 2y ago
    Having known several great EEs in FAANG who did exactly that job, sometimes paying Chinese income tax due to the length of their stays at the factory, that is my impression as well.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    Does that include the EEs designing PCBs and circuits for Apple products?
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    So basically fits the theme of "we gave up silicon production to cheaper countries and we're shocked those countries have surpassed us"
- bfrog 2y ago
  Limited to non existent jobs. Not much else to say, the jobs like so many others have been exported. Taiwan and China being the electronics and manufacturing centers means design has steadily moved as well. Ask any board house in the west how things are going, the ones that are left that is.
  - floating-io 2y ago
    It would help if they didn't charge $50 for a single raw PCB in low quantity when I can have the same board not just made, but also assembled in China for a fraction of that, shipping included. Literally. I've often wondered if that's some kind of industry inertia issue, or if there's some underlying additional cost to build in the US.
    - bfrog 2y ago
      People here cost a little more. No one here does quite the volume jlcpcb likely does. Perhaps there’s some artificial market factor as well like CCP tends to weigh some scales. There’s board assembly machines made in china as well likely further reducing the cost to build out assembly lines. Perhaps cheaper sources of basic materials like copper. Likely multitudes of factors at play all of them in favor of China
      - floating-io 2y ago
        I could buy that to some degree, but not to the current insane level of price disparity. PCB production should be one of those things that is or can be mostly automated if it isn't already. Assembly is definitely already a mostly automated process. This is all existing tech. Thus the cost differential doesn't seem justifiable. I have to think that this is very much "build it and they will come" territory if you can get within 1.5x to 3x the price, so it continues to boggle my mind that nobody has managed to make it happen. The only blocker I can truly identify is the magnitude of the initial investment. That doesn't explain why the prices at domestic board houses seem to have remained pretty much exactly the same for the last couple of decades, though. As far as I can tell, they just don't want the business.
- RhysabOweyn 2y ago
  Chip design/semiconductors/etc. have been a dead end in the US for 30+ years, but EE is a broad field and other specialties like RF/power systems/anything defense related are still in high demand. An EE with a PE will have an infinitely easier time getting a job working at a utility or engineering firm than any software developer these days to be honest.
  - sentinalien 2y ago
    Plenty of chip design done in the US
Kirby64 2y ago
Software jobs are more plentiful, sure, but you’re discounting the extremely high quantity of EE/CE jobs available at semiconductor companies (Intel, AMD, and many smaller ones) and companies like Apple. They don’t pay as well, but they can pay quite good over time and tend to be more stable than software jobs.
7thaccount 2y ago
I'm a EE and had no problem finding a job and neither did any of my classmates in my EE program (early 2010s). I also didn't exactly go to anything approaching MIT, but it was an engineering school and I had a decent GPA. Particularly, there are a lot of well paying jobs in power systems with good work life balance. We have an energy transition going on, so that helps. Having an internship probably helped me too. I acknowledge that things might have broadly changed.
- speff 2y ago
  Similar qualifications here, but no internships. Couldn't find anything after grad school in the early 2010s (and still nothing in the mid 2010s after trying again). Went into telcom and I'm a happy little coder now. Nice to actually feel appreciated in this field compared to EE where it felt like I was always working my butt off for scraps.
  - 7thaccount 2y ago
    Just curious, were you still looking for entry level jobs after grad school or something more in the R&D realm?
    - speff 2y ago
      I was focused on finding something entry-level. Did a non-thesis masters focused on mixed signal / RF design and R&D didn't really appeal to me at the time
- jamesfinlayson 2y ago
  > there are a lot of well paying jobs in power systems with good work life balance How much electrical engineering is there in these jobs? I knew a few electrical engineer at university (weirdly they outnumbered the software engineers 3 to 1) and some of them told me they could get work for a local power company, but it was mostly looking at spreadsheets and not really using anything that they'd learned.
  - 2y ago

Everyone I know that was in EE falls into two camps basically: 1. Became web developers 2. Work in Defense or some other regulated industry that has protections from being outsourced to China

bnetd 2y ago

Is there a somber write-up anywhere as to the future of EE in the West?

ecshafer 2y ago
I don't know if there is a somber write up. But from what I have heard from a lot of people, is that jobs designing and making say PCB boards and electronic circuits just don't exist. They are all in Shenzhen. Those American firms that have American engineers still, seem to all involve flying to those factories to help fix problems, and are dead end jobs. At least thats my impression.
- brickfaced 2y ago
  Having known several great EEs in FAANG who did exactly that job, sometimes paying Chinese income tax due to the length of their stays at the factory, that is my impression as well.
- hollerith 2y ago
  Does that include the EEs designing PCBs and circuits for Apple products?
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  So basically fits the theme of "we gave up silicon production to cheaper countries and we're shocked those countries have surpassed us"
bfrog 2y ago
Limited to non existent jobs. Not much else to say, the jobs like so many others have been exported. Taiwan and China being the electronics and manufacturing centers means design has steadily moved as well. Ask any board house in the west how things are going, the ones that are left that is.
- floating-io 2y ago
  It would help if they didn't charge $50 for a single raw PCB in low quantity when I can have the same board not just made, but also assembled in China for a fraction of that, shipping included. Literally. I've often wondered if that's some kind of industry inertia issue, or if there's some underlying additional cost to build in the US.
  - bfrog 2y ago
    People here cost a little more. No one here does quite the volume jlcpcb likely does. Perhaps there’s some artificial market factor as well like CCP tends to weigh some scales. There’s board assembly machines made in china as well likely further reducing the cost to build out assembly lines. Perhaps cheaper sources of basic materials like copper. Likely multitudes of factors at play all of them in favor of China
    - floating-io 2y ago
      I could buy that to some degree, but not to the current insane level of price disparity. PCB production should be one of those things that is or can be mostly automated if it isn't already. Assembly is definitely already a mostly automated process. This is all existing tech. Thus the cost differential doesn't seem justifiable. I have to think that this is very much "build it and they will come" territory if you can get within 1.5x to 3x the price, so it continues to boggle my mind that nobody has managed to make it happen. The only blocker I can truly identify is the magnitude of the initial investment. That doesn't explain why the prices at domestic board houses seem to have remained pretty much exactly the same for the last couple of decades, though. As far as I can tell, they just don't want the business.
RhysabOweyn 2y ago
Chip design/semiconductors/etc. have been a dead end in the US for 30+ years, but EE is a broad field and other specialties like RF/power systems/anything defense related are still in high demand. An EE with a PE will have an infinitely easier time getting a job working at a utility or engineering firm than any software developer these days to be honest.
- sentinalien 2y ago
  Plenty of chip design done in the US

Kirby64 2y ago

Software jobs are more plentiful, sure, but you’re discounting the extremely high quantity of EE/CE jobs available at semiconductor companies (Intel, AMD, and many smaller ones) and companies like Apple. They don’t pay as well, but they can pay quite good over time and tend to be more stable than software jobs.

7thaccount 2y ago

I'm a EE and had no problem finding a job and neither did any of my classmates in my EE program (early 2010s). I also didn't exactly go to anything approaching MIT, but it was an engineering school and I had a decent GPA. Particularly, there are a lot of well paying jobs in power systems with good work life balance. We have an energy transition going on, so that helps. Having an internship probably helped me too. I acknowledge that things might have broadly changed.

speff 2y ago
Similar qualifications here, but no internships. Couldn't find anything after grad school in the early 2010s (and still nothing in the mid 2010s after trying again). Went into telcom and I'm a happy little coder now. Nice to actually feel appreciated in this field compared to EE where it felt like I was always working my butt off for scraps.
- 7thaccount 2y ago
  Just curious, were you still looking for entry level jobs after grad school or something more in the R&D realm?
  - speff 2y ago
    I was focused on finding something entry-level. Did a non-thesis masters focused on mixed signal / RF design and R&D didn't really appeal to me at the time
jamesfinlayson 2y ago
> there are a lot of well paying jobs in power systems with good work life balance How much electrical engineering is there in these jobs? I knew a few electrical engineer at university (weirdly they outnumbered the software engineers 3 to 1) and some of them told me they could get work for a local power company, but it was mostly looking at spreadsheets and not really using anything that they'd learned.
- 2y ago