Do we have any telecom engineers here?

[ivan747]

Hi, I've just started studying electronics engineering and the curriculum includes telecommunications. It seems to me telecom is one of the most developed fields in electronics my country has.

I am guessing working in telecom implies working in medium to large corporations, often international. I am wondering what the typical job in this field consists on, what sort of pay you get (although that is regional), how is it really related with electronics and how would it compare with other fields like electronics design or the sort of job you do at manufacturing plants dealing with PLCs and things like that.

Thanks
-Ivan

P.S: I'm doing this thread in the spirit of this other one:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/do-we-have-any-robotics-engineers-here/

[tld]

I don't think there's a simple answer to what you're asking. Pay varies with region, company size and so on. Seems to me like big companies can pay more, but offer less job diversity.

There's also many very differnt jobs, from pole-monkeys to DBA-greybeards to management and customer support.

tld

[grego]

I work for AT&T as a network design engineer on the IP side of things (mobility side).

As was mentioned it depends - to be honest aside from some work in AT&T labs most of what the telecoms do (e.g AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc) is not electronics design in any way shape or form.  We don't design/deploy our own stuff, we buy it from companies like Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Cisco, Tektronix, etc.

If you want to do electronics design in telecom you'd be better off looking at telecom vendors like those I listed rather than the telecoms themselves.  In the service provider space you're going to be looking at network engineering, RAN engineering, IT, DBAs, etc.

[ivan747]

Yes, I am asking about service providers rather than telecom vendors. Unfortunately, I don't expect too see much electronics design in this country except maybe custom stuff.

So basically the most engineering-related things consists on deploying different kinds of networks. So we are working more or less in a high level of abstraction, but I am guessing someone has to specify the kind of fiber optics transceivers to be used, cellular tower locations and so on right?


Also, I know there are many different positions and roles in the industry, I just don't know what these are (you have already mentioned things I didn't know existed, like RAN engineering, which sounds good).

[tld]

Slow down there...

Yes, someone needs to standardize on which fiber-tech to use, but that's often company-wide decision, and not really something that's decided by engineers on a case-by-case basic.

Similar with radio-planners. Unless you've got significant relevant experience, and someone for some reason need fresh blood for a fresh tech-rollout, there's not going to be a lot there.

You'd also be competing against people with significant relevant experience.

The way the market is right now, if you want to get into engineering with a telecomprovider, other than sheer luck (huge amounts of it), I think your best bet would be to aim entry-level and hope to work your way up, while at the same time avoiding getting downsized.

Telecom os fragile now. A lot of the work has been done, and is more a matter of incremetial upgrades than any significant buildout.

One thing you could do is look for the kinds of tech that's on the way in, and aim your efforts there. Moving towards VoIP is one such area, but you could easily find yourself competing against a lot of people with more relevant experience.

tld

[Pack34]

I did some Telco work as an intern and for a year or two after graduating. It's very high level stuff. The types of technology used for service is not decided by you. You'll receive a specification of what type of circuit will be installed and you'll pick out the equipment numbers from a pre-determined list and then you'd draft the circuit and cabling path in a 2D CAD software like Microstation.

It's a very standardized type of job that you just have to grind out. When I did it I would typically have 20-30 jobs on my plate at any one time and I found it was much more managing than engineering. Half the work is related towards getting permits and forms and the other half is mainly civil engineering and record keeping.

[ivan747]

So it seems an electronics engineer doesn't really do much electronics in a telecom company 

[edpalmer42]

The way the market is right now, if you want to get into engineering with a telecomprovider, other than sheer luck (huge amounts of it), I think your best bet would be to aim entry-level and hope to work your way up, while at the same time avoiding getting downsized.

I did some Telco work as an intern and for a year or two after graduating. It's very high level stuff. The types of technology used for service is not decided by you. You'll receive a specification of what type of circuit will be installed and you'll pick out the equipment numbers from a pre-determined list and then you'd draft the circuit and cabling path in a 2D CAD software like Microstation.

It's a very standardized type of job that you just have to grind out. When I did it I would typically have 20-30 jobs on my plate at any one time and I found it was much more managing than engineering. Half the work is related towards getting permits and forms and the other half is mainly civil engineering and record keeping.

tld and Pack34 hit the nail on the head.

You start with an entry-level job like Pack34 described.  You learn the company, you build a reputation as a competent worker (or better) and start watching the internal job postings.  Maybe transfer to another entry-level job that's more inline with your interests, if necessary.  Then work your way up from there.  If you get downsized somewhere along the line you may be able to jump to another company where your previous experience has value.  Take a step or two down the ladder and carry on.

The thing to remember is that, in general, when you graduate you don't know anything that's of value to an employer.  The only thing your degree proves is that you have a working brain, can learn, can put up with some crap you really don't care for, and have the tenacity to stick to it and get the job done.  From then on, it's on the job training and/or company and/or vendor-specific training in the equipment and systems that you'll be working on.  The work is typically high level system design & integration rather than low level electronic design, but getting a million dollar system installed and operating can be at least as satisfying as getting your latest widget debugged and working.

I worked for a telco for over 30 years.  In that time, I had about half a dozen positions that went from voice switching to local and wide area computer network design to R&D.  I describe it as having three careers with one company.  In each job I worked on separate projects with relatively little day-to-day routine junk.  It was great!

Ed

[Pack34]

So it seems an electronics engineer doesn't really do much electronics in a telecom company 

You use electronics at a Telco, not design them. If you want to design telecom equipment then you want a job at a place like Alcatel.

[eps]

I do some research in the field of communication networks at a university, which includes development of mathematical models.
Although it is mostly a mathematical problem, basic knowledge of electronics and communications help to design more realistic models.

[vk6zgo]

I don't know what Engineers do in Telecommunications these days,but certainly the Engineers I worked with over many years did real Engineering work.

PMG's Dept/Telecom Aust did not buy "turnkey" solutions.they designed whole networks "in house".

OK,the equipment was from vendors,but there was enough Engineering work to keep any EE happy,as in most cases "one size fits all" did not apply,& they were confronted by unanticipated challenges.

They weren't designing "widgets" but designing systems still requires more than just ticking off a list!

[tld]

They weren't designing "widgets" but designing systems still requires more than just ticking off a list!

Good choice of words.

Techs in telecom doesn't really make widgets these days, they use widges to make systems.

There's still systems-work to be done, but I think a lot of (most of?) that is systems as in software these days.

There's planning and provisioning, databases, debugging- and trackingsystems, signups and admin-panels for customers, and so on.

tld

[CharlesAskew]

Incorporating telecommunications in electronics engineering curriculum? There is nothing wrong with that besides the telecom industry has been a huge market and has opened plenty of job opportunities for engineers.

[rsjsouza]

So it seems an electronics engineer doesn't really do much electronics in a telecom company 

100% agree with everybody else here - I have several friends that work in telcos and they are usually involved in resource management isntead of design. However, sometimes there are some side jobs that require very specialized hardware (protocol converters, adapters of all kinds, etc.) that are very specific to the country/region and require local design - my wife used to work for one of these companies but unfortunately there are not many job opportunities on this area...