Curiosity question - EE job market

[Rick Law]

If you don't mind sharing your experience...

For recent college grads with EE degree in the USA, how is the job market these days?  Also, how does that compares against your expectation when you selected EE as your major?

[ataradov]

Automation's rise could eventually lead to strange situations where people paid to work rather than the other way around.

What this has to do with OP's question?

[cdev]

You're right,, it is of only peripheral relevance. I suspect electrical engineering is perhaps one of the professions least afflicted by that kind of thing.

[rstofer]

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm

Job prospects don't look good.  OTOH, BLS doesn't separate electrical from electronic.  There is another category for computer hardware engineers.

You can drill down and see where all the money is.

[ataradov]

Their definitions of occupations are vague and sort of useless. If you look at at this https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/computer-hardware-engineers.htm , your outlook will be much better. Yet it is essentially the same area of expertise. And there are lots of examples like this.

Combined, you are in much better positions than social studies major, don't worry about that

[cdev]

They shouldn't graduate computer engineers who don't understand electronics. I hope they aren't doing that.

[ataradov]

Basically, ordinary, non controlled jobs are taken mostly by Chinese and Indian, asking for $7000/mo or less, with a master's degree, in return to get H1B or green card.

If you are a good/decent engineer, then this actually comes in handy, since it is ridiculously easy to be better than cheap labor. Even the most stubborn employers eventually realize that they are wasting a lot of money on "cheap" labor. The only way cheap works, if you actually outsource the whole job to India, where you pay way less than this.

Also, there are consultant outsourcing companies like Tata (aka Indian H1B/green card factory), they basically offer cheap (comparable or only slightly higher than permanent employee)

I have never heard of body shops providing services in EE/HW design area. They are mostly focused on Web applications, databases and similar stuff.

Hardware is typically too risky for them.

[cdev]

It works both ways, if an American company wants to set up a presence in India, bringing their workforce from the US and paying them US wages, they could do that. Also, if Americans leave the country once they leave the US they can work for less. The minimum wage rules no longer apply.

Defense will be the place to be. People will want to put surveillance in everything if it means decent jobs that cant be offsourced or outshored. (joke)

To their credit the Indian companies in the Indian press make a lot of noise about how many Americans they are being forced to hire. Basically, their whole business model depends on the US and expansion thats not creating new companies or new value, its just what you described. And they don't see how or why that might be seen as "wrong" by Americans, They argue it "saves us a lot of money" on wages and educating our young people. Why own when you can rent.. is their logic. (See http://web.archive.org/web/20090410103914/http://commerce.nic.in/wto_sub/Invest/sub_invest-W39.htm )

Not good unless you apply for a defense company. Basically, ordinary, non controlled jobs are taken mostly by Chinese and Indian, asking for $7000/mo or less, with a master's degree, in return to get H1B or green card.
Also, there are consultant outsourcing companies like Tata (aka Indian H1B/green card factory), they basically offer cheap (comparable or only slightly higher than permanent employee) labor on a fly-in-fly-out fashion, so companies can hire consultants on the fly, use them, and fire them, without legal consequences. This makes companies less favor to hire employees.

[ataradov]

From my experience, American students

Ok, I kind of forgot the student part. Absolutely without experience it may be rough in the beginning.

[Towger]

Computer engineer could mean anything.  Being able to connect a couple of wires up is enough to qualify for the name. 

[coppice]

Also, there are consultant outsourcing companies like Tata (aka Indian H1B/green card factory), they basically offer cheap (comparable or only slightly higher than permanent employee)

I have never heard of body shops providing services in EE/HW design area. They are mostly focused on Web applications, databases and similar stuff.

Hardware is typically too risky for them.

Web apps and database must be a small part of the body shop business. Its widespread across most kinds of software and silicon development. I see less of it for hardware equipment development, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

[cdev]

https://web.archive.org/web/20080313195303/http://www.afsc.org/trade-matters/issues/LaborMobility.pdf

[Rick Law]

Basically, ordinary, non controlled jobs are taken mostly by Chinese and Indian, asking for $7000/mo or less, with a master's degree, in return to get H1B or green card.

If you are a good/decent engineer, then this actually comes in handy, since it is ridiculously easy to be better than cheap labor. Even the most stubborn employers eventually realize that they are wasting a lot of money on "cheap" labor. The only way cheap works, if you actually outsource the whole job to India, where you pay way less than this.
...

One would hope that is the case, but do you really think most C-level bosses really know which employees know their stuff and which ones don't?

I don't have hard data other than personal experiences.  My experience would lead me to believe: most C-Level bosses would be so far from the action that they have minimum idea about those doing actual production work.  So, C-level bosses make decisions on a macro scale averaging out a department or even averaging an entire division of a company - and on average, cost and staff-quality included, it is hard to beat someone who is 1/3 cost or lower.

...
Also, there are consultant outsourcing companies like Tata (aka Indian H1B/green card factory), they basically offer cheap (comparable or only slightly higher than permanent employee)

I have never heard of body shops providing services in EE/HW design area. They are mostly focused on Web applications, databases and similar stuff.

Hardware is typically too risky for them.

You are right about those outsourcing companies.  I think that software is lower risk is just a perception and not true.  Software could be life-blood of their company - just turn SAP (or name your ERP) off for a day and see how many companies can keep their operation going.

Even if it is high risk to outsource, I don't think it bother most C-Level bosses.  Some C-Level bosses make big bets -and- they don't fall on their sword when it fails.  They moved on while the failure is not yet visible - then, 6 month after they moved on to a bigger fatter job, the whole house of card came down like a pile of quick sand.

[ataradov]

One would hope that is the case, but do you really think most C-level bosses really know which employees know their stuff and which ones don't?

They do when things escalate. And things escalate a lot when people have no clue what they are doing. Whether those manager are in a position to hire better people is a different question.

You are right about those outsourcing companies.  I think that software is lower risk is just a perception and not true.

The software is easy to "fix" when it breaks.  It is harder to fix 10000 assembled boards with some hardware mistake.

[cdev]

The WTO Working Party on Domestic Regulation (WPDR) is developing the "disciplines on domestic regulation" that will likely govern globalization of professional services and cross licensing issues.

Currently its my understanding that most of them are still incomplete, except for accounting.

No doubt this (and other services related issues) will be on the agenda for discussion by at Buenos Aires in December.

[Mattjd]

How much do engineers have to interact with an ERP such as SAP? I have quite a bit of experience with SAP, on the logistics side, using its Warehouse Module, Material Module, Inventory Module, Light Billing. Basically, a customer would place a purchase order, in turn a sales order would be generated, from there is where I took over, until the invoice was created and EDI sent. At which point it was billing & 3rd party carriers responsibility.

I worked in a distribution center.

I always thought it was going to be useless information. I learned quite a bit about it. I actually wrote an ~200 page pdf for that job before I left. It was like a big picture kind of thing, like what transactions in the software represented in the process of the company.  How I did the processes, and some that I implemented. Also some software "hacks" like using multiple unrelated transaction to obtain information for another. Quite a bit of it was a result of me being lazy, and believing that it was complete bull crap that there wasn't faster methods.

Could this actually be useful?

[ataradov]

How much do engineers have to interact with an ERP such as SAP?

Hopefully not at all.

Could this actually be useful?

Not really.

[Mattjd]

How much do engineers have to interact with an ERP such as SAP?

Hopefully not at all.

Could this actually be useful?

Not really.

 

[ataradov]

Work on actual projects. Having good stuff on GitHub is more important than education in a lot of cases. If you did some projects for the university - put them all out.

[rstofer]

Computer engineer could mean anything.  Being able to connect a couple of wires up is enough to qualify for the name.

The wire hooker-uppers are in the IT category or technician categories.
To me, computer engineers would be the CPU guys - FPGA experts - those kinds of engineers.  Serious hardware folks - the kind the .gov would love to hire.

It's regrettable that BLS doesn't clean up their job descriptions.  Maybe even use the same codes that employers use.

[Rick Law]

How much do engineers have to interact with an ERP such as SAP? I have quite a bit of experience with SAP, on the logistics side, using its Warehouse Module, Material Module, Inventory Module, Light Billing. Basically, a customer would place a purchase order, in turn a sales order would be generated, from there is where I took over, until the invoice was created and EDI sent. At which point it was billing & 3rd party carriers responsibility.

I worked in a distribution center.

I always thought it was going to be useless information. I learned quite a bit about it. I actually wrote an ~200 page pdf for that job before I left. It was like a big picture kind of thing, like what transactions in the software represented in the process of the company.  How I did the processes, and some that I implemented. Also some software "hacks" like using multiple unrelated transaction to obtain information for another. Quite a bit of it was a result of me being lazy, and believing that it was complete bull crap that there wasn't faster methods.

Could this actually be useful?

re: "Could this actually be useful?"

For EE engineers, it probably is not very useful.  For the operational folks that ERP targets, the usefulness depends on what you mean by the word "this".

If "this" refers to ERP/SAP, definitely.  SAP doesn't get to be one of the largest software firm if most manufacturers see ERP as a waste of time.  But if "this" refers to the "hack", it would depends on what that SAP owner use it for.

I don't think ERP in general is a big picture thing.  It is operational data: how much do I sell so far?  What is my margin?   Which product(s) are in my warehouse and how long?
(If not set to order automatically) What raw material do I need to order?  So forth.  It aims to automate all that stuff.  Without a good ERP, "just in time" inventory management is darn near impossible.  ERP data also is a good source for data-mining to see if one can find any information about sales, admin cost, product cost, etc. etc.

Main problem with ERP is really flexibility.  One COO from a major firm once said of ERP (sorry, too far back for me to remember who), "It is like casting your operating procedure in concrete."  Once you get all your procedures automated in code, changing any part of it often is a lot of work.

EDI is another matter.  I don't know how the recent web related impact to EDI and I assume there would be many.    My knowledge is 10 years old so likely out of date to some extend.   ~10 yrs ago, world wide for many ports, you can't even dock your ship without getting an EDI manifest to the port authorities.  Some ports, EDI is absolutely required, some ports, EDI merely avoid delay.  An extra day in a major port costs a lot of money.

Besides shipment/order, EDI's cousin EDIFACT deals with admin/financial part of it and that is also very useful.  ERP's direct connect to EDI is therefore very useful.

I think I said too much - ERP is way too far off topic.  I brought it up to show a counter example that software failure could be as expensive as hardware failure and that the end user would hardly care whether it is hardware or software when the darn thing fail.

May be I am wrong, but ERP has so little to do with EE I can't see how it would affects new EE college grad's job market.  So lets get back to discuss EE - new grad job market.

[cdev]

Documenting business processes- breaking each business process down into its component pieces so they can each be optimized for maximum profit is super important in this era of global value chains. That goes for everything, services as well as products. Many businesses are virtual now, it may not make much sense having a physical office if it can be done cheaper by companies that specialize in providing services, for example, design services, over the Internet. If 90% of value is added by the firm in the high cost country, which may consist of only one or two people but done by the back office people in the low cost country thats now framed as more efficient and "frees up a great many people to do more interesting work".

We could see Amazon-like companies that literally hire thousands of engineers from all over the world that act as the clearinghouse for their work, paying them based on bidding. They would bid for the work. Its a system that would favor people in countries with a low cost of education and living.

The key to this is mutual recognition of credentials and cross licensing which is being worked on now. The reason this is already happening in software has more to do with the lack of formal licensing in software design, so its just ahead of the curve time wise, with other professions likely to follow it in the near future as they are harmonised.

Like the Borg, the cult of neoliberalism tries to present this shift as natural and 'resistance as futile' but the fact is its quite contrived and its goal is increasing inequality in society and eliminating the ladders upward out of poverty by a frontal assault on middle class jobs. Public services in particular are under attack.

This totally shifts the direction society had been going in-reversing progress in  a system that should become more equal by framing all the things that governments have traditionally helped people achieve as interference and regulation as thefts from corporations. Laws become subject to a veto based on a concept called indirect expropriation that attacks the right to regulate, basically eliminating democracy's ability to fix policy mistakes, by turning every shift in the corporate direction as irreversible and a property right whose loss must suddenly be compensated for.. This ignores the fact that people, also are "investors" in society whose interests should be respected and given a value. But now they are not, unless it can be tied to a corporate profit in some way (for example, peoples lives are valued by their earning potential and so it becomes cost effective to pollute shamelessly in poor areas or in a manner which mostly effects children and/or older people if liability is based on their lost incomes, costs to pay off people who somehow could afford to pay a lawyer to sue, would be very low or nil. Subrogation clauses in insurance adds to the inequality.)

So, there are choices we need to make but they are being hidden from us.Very powerful well funded, and amoral interests are trying to deprive the planet of many choices it needs to make by pre-deciding them against the best interests of almost everybody, and hiding them in tehse international agreements and anti-democratic obligations.

The boosters of this agenda are more like a cult than we would expect given their positions in society. They meet Robert J. Lifton's cult criteria.

Lowers costs and increases the profitability for business owners, is not the same as lowering costs for people, especially if the change is accomplished by shifts that eliminate large numbers of jobs as they are expected to. The shifts will hurt most businesses and benefit the largest multinational corporations.

High skill professions of all kinds are being targeted for commoditization and cross border trading in engineering services via all four of the WTO GATS defined "four modes of supply" is likely to become a rapidly growing permanent part of the services landscape..

Engineering, both hardware and software will enjoy no exception from what will be happening to everybody else.

The campaign against "non tariff barriers" will lead to more inequality in society and shift profitability upward. Unlike the hype, these shifts wont help 99% of the people in the developing world - except for those who are already quite wealthy.

(they areguably will hurt them by gutting public services like higher education and health care in order to put them into play in what amounts to a global poker game with people's lives)

The changes will deprive whole generations of people of decent jobs and cut wages for high skill work to the bone which disrespects the huge efforts needed to know how to do that work and creates an unsustainable situation that helps nobody.

[rstofer]

The thing is, if you peruse the BLS site, you will find that software wienies have an equally high income as the EEs but the job market is booming.

We already have computers, we have chips, there's nothing much for CPU type EEs to do.  Not enough work to keep the current herd employed while expanding to allow for entry level engineers.  That's what BLS is trying to show.  Although they appear to lump in electrical (power) engineers.  You would think that even electrical engineering would be growing given the population growth and the need for utility companies to meet the demand (pun intended) but apparently they have all the engineers they need.  If you want a job in that field, you need to wait for somebody to die off.

So, look up software engineer and drill down into Silicon Valley.  There are tons of jobs, lots of money (and a cost of living to match) and great opportunity.

When I was in college, software was a small niche and hardware was everything.  We wanted Fortran to run fast!  COBOL too...  CPU design wasn't a settled issue.  Today it is - we have x64 and ARM and that's got hardware covered.

Things have changed in the last 40 years.  Today, software engineering (not programming!) is a really big deal.  There are jobs for programmers as well.  Look it up!  It doesn't pay as well as software engineering nor are the entry requirements as high.

[Rick Law]

The thing is, if you peruse the BLS site, you will find that software wienies have an equally high income as the EEs but the job market is booming.
...
...
 software engineering (not programming!) is a really big deal.  There are jobs for programmers as well.  Look it up!  It doesn't pay as well as software engineering nor are the entry requirements as high.

We have a definition issue to resolve...

What do you mean by software engineer and how is that different than programmer?

To me, the difference is like "hair styler" vs "berber".  One pretends to make it a nice experience for you, and that they care.  They make you pay for that pretense.  The other one knows you just want your hair cut and get the hack out of there.  They charge you less so you shut up and let the guy get it done.

[rstofer]

The thing is, if you peruse the BLS site, you will find that software wienies have an equally high income as the EEs but the job market is booming.
...
...
 software engineering (not programming!) is a really big deal.  There are jobs for programmers as well.  Look it up!  It doesn't pay as well as software engineering nor are the entry requirements as high.

We have a definition issue to resolve...

What do you mean by software engineer and how is that different than programmer?

To me, the difference is like "hair styler" vs "berber".  One pretends to make it a nice experience for you, and that they care.  They make you pay for that pretense.  The other one knows you just want your hair cut and get the hack out of there.  They charge you less so you shut up and let the guy get it done.

There's a HUGE difference.  A software engineer designs the algorithms, specifies the performance, whatever else is relevant to the engineering of the project.

A programmer writes the code to implement the design.

A software engineer will have a 4 year degree in (software) engineering with a BUNCH of math (up to and including Differential Equations) pretty much like any other engineer.

A programmer may need a 4 year degree but it won't necessarily be in engineering.

Here is the BLS definition

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-programmers.htm