physical electronics work

[jose347]

Hi I am an electrical engineer currently working in the integrated circuit design world, work has become slow for me lately, so I have been supporting others groups in the electronics fields,
I have noticed that most of the jobs in my company are strictly computer related, there is no lab work no physical interaction with your circuit, I have been looking at jobs and the only things that I have found working bench type works are electronic technician which really aren't engineers, my questions is which type of work(position) is it if any for an engineer that actually have a physical interaction with the electronics  (psu, oscilloscope or lab work related)?

[Benta]

Power electronics and RF. Two typical cases where simulation only can get you so far. Lots of lab work involved.

[ajb]

Smaller companies in general are more likely to have hands-on designers.  But that also comes with other tradeoffs, like having to help put out fires in production/support more often.

[coppercone2]

Smaller companies in general are more likely to have hands-on designers.  But that also comes with other tradeoffs, like having to help put out fires in production/support more often.

yes, at a small company expect that one of your duties as a design engineer will sometimes be to help production, especially if you know how to use the tools. That means testing a few products sometimes, and having to write procedures, rather then pure design, unless I imagine your really lucky. But you need to like, analyze the situation to make sure your not being given labor that interferes with a product release or other orders.. kind of juggling alot in a smaller company that gives you more roles. But also if their doing that, there wont be money available for nice test equipment (the whole point of using you this way is to save money on another employee) or lots of experiments.. you have to justify it more.

[CatalinaWOW]

In big companies guys in the test and evaluation side of the business often get their hands dirty.  The trade is that the only design experience they get is for test jigs and the like.  Might be pretty sophisticated, but most folks want to design the out the door stuff.

[srce]

If you are an IC designer, why not try to get involved with bring-up and characterisation of your ICs?

[jose347]

We don't have the equipment, work is done remotely of the location of the company, so we only provide the service related to design.