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| Where are the EE jobs in the US, apart from Silicon Valley? |
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| anonymous_ee:
TL;DR: Browsing LinkedIn gives me some idea of what goes on in different places, but nothing beats asking a local. So... how is the job market where you live? How big, what niches, is it competitive, is the pay good? I would appreciate all insights, but specially Boston, Philadelphia, Birmingham AL, and Silicon Valley itself for reference. Hi everyone, I'm thinking about the next years in my career and wanted to get your opinions and perceptions on where are the EE jobs in the US. For some background, I want to do electronics design engineering. I am looking for an entry level position in that specialty. I've had electronics as a hobby since I was 13. At some point I watched EEVblog for hours every day after school. I have 2 years of manufacturing and test engineering experience, and 3 years of unrelated network engineering experience before that. Right now I'm in grad school for a masters in EE. I would consider myself competent technically, and a great troubleshooter. I think I convey this very well in interviews, but my resume/experience is very fragmented so recruiters don't know what to do with me (if I get to the interview, I get hired about 30% of the time). The social aspect of the manufacturing environment wears me down a LOT. No problems in network engineering though, office environment with occasional field work with colleagues and no customers. I also worked as a lab technician for some months and it was great. So I do best at a job where I see a few familiar faces, and can spend my energy on the engineering. Last year I moved to New York City for family reasons. I was expecting a wider variety of electronics engineering jobs, but this doesn't seem to be the case for the city. Most job offerings seem to be either for manufacturing in New Jersey, manufacturing in Long Island, or related to defense contractors (judging by the secret clearance requirements). Realistically, I could only work in Long Island but the salaries are not that good. In the city proper, there is a small amount of jobs in tech that pay well, but they are few and far in between, specially entry level. Colleagues in tech have been laid off and haven’t found work in months, except for a handful that got hired by a startup (those were senior positions and they are senior-level engineers). All in all, things seem slow in NYC tech. So for my wife and I's next move, I want to get a feel for the jobs in other areas before moving cities. I think we need to consider job markets for the both of us for the next place we move to. Thank you and all the best to you PS, moderation team: I'm posting in General because it's is neither looking for work nor offering work, I hope this is an acceptable choice. |
| anonymous_ee:
On both manufacturing and test engineering I worked on an inductive proximity sensors assembly line for a Fortune 500 company. Manufacturing focused on reducing product defects and yield loss through process improvements. Test engineering focused on the same things but through changes to the automated test equipment. It was semi-automatic equipment where the operator places the device under test and the machine performs the test. Those machines consisted of PLCs, DAQs, assorted sensors, a C# test framework and NI TestStand for test sequencing. I did not do clean sheet designs (that’s a different department) but I did lead construction of duplicates and designed updates and upgrades for existing machines. The reason I ask is because in two years we will have to move no matter what, so we might as well explore our options. |
| anonymous_ee:
--- Quote from: karpouzi9 on October 24, 2023, 02:36:35 am --- --- Quote ---Right now I'm in grad school for a masters in EE. --- End quote --- What are you focusing on? Is your thesis project interesting or novel? Why not do your own start up? --- Quote ---I would consider myself competent technically, and a great troubleshooter. --- End quote --- This is relevant for bring-up but meaningless given "troubleshooting" can mean swapping IP addresses or power supplies whereas troubleshooting a prototype design could mean anything. In particular the things that it means are very different between an analog-only design and a digital-only design. Try contracting. If your clients like you maybe they'll hire you. If you manage your goals to be slightly above your current skill level you'll always be learning something & improving. --- End quote --- I don't have the appetite for risk that a startup takes, unfortunately (specially someone else's money). I have done some contracting, but finding contracts is just as hard as finding jobs if there's no industry around you. I guess I can sell niche hardware I design, and I've been designing some things for my own experience. But if I want to fund that, I need a full time job after I'm done studying. --- Quote ---You need to be specific about what designs you've done, your appetite for architecture, optimization, systems analysis, your familiarity with the palette of electrical/electro-X-ical components. --- End quote --- I haven't done electronics design professionally, unless you count the test engineering experience. At the hobby level I have done projects involving embedded systems, programming in C, PCB layouts, programming drivers in Python for a robot, and some Verilog. Embedded electronics is the most interesting to me. But I really don't like cornering myself into a niche (but this is what they want out of a professional, unfortunately). |
| jwet:
I was an FAE for Maxim for a lot of years and visited all our customer worldwide over the years. In the US, its pretty well spread out but certain industries tend to be regionalized- obviously around Detroit and a lot of the midwest is Automotive. The midwest also has a lot of industrial- Cleveland, OH, Chicago, IL, Indianapolis, IN. Indianapolis also has a lot of medical. LA, Orange County and Southern CA including San Diego is a huge EE Area likely about the same size of the bay area. Silicon Valley has the chip companies and there are lots of related jobs for applications, IC design, IC Test and yield enhancement, product engineering, etc. Dallas Texas is a traditional Telecom hub. Austin has a quite a bit of everything, computers, industrial and test, El Paso does gritty automotive and industrial. Phoenix is ok and is Tuscon. Boston has a lot of everything as does NY, especially Long Island, NJ and PA aren't bad. Maryland especially close to DC/VA is a hot spot. North Carolina in the Raleigh/RTP area is a hot spot where I live- networking, computers and some wireless. Southwestern VA- Lynchburg, VA is good. Knoxville, TN has a fair amount of activity. Atlanta and most of FLA is good. Oklahoma is a hot spot, especially marine electronics. Kansas has Aero and GPS (Garmin). Washingon and Oregon are more than fair. Washington has most in the west near Seattle. Oregon has a ton of FABs and IC companies as well as smallish cos. Colorado especially Denver and Boulder are hot. New Mexico is ok. Places without much activity in general South Carolina, West VA, Arkansas,the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana. A lot of these areas grew out of some concentrated industry giant traditionally. People are attracted to these big employers and often create spinoffs in the same area. Good schools often drive tech concentration- this is certainly true in the Bay Area but also Boston, Phili and Atlanta, etc. |
| jonpaul:
Hello anonymous_ee: If I understand you, the mentioned 30%rate of hire/application is VERY GOOD and VERY HIGH! Most job seekers are lucky to get ONE response out og 100 or even 1000! Are your methods first to locate a city or region to move to based on possibility of finding a nexus of EE work? Decades ago, would have been LA, NY area, Boston, SF Bay. Nowadays the dispersion of engineers, remote work, outsourcing changed this. Many large firms outsourced ALL engineering, to China, East Europe, and do it all remotely. Firing engineering staff is more common than hiring. A relocation must be guided by other factors as most large cities now have a very cost of living, little good housing, very high taxes, high crime risk, risky transport, Normally job seekers will either specify a locale (will not relocate) or be open to relocate anywhere, depending on the offer (relocation expense paid) My career and work as EE for 55 years was by connections, friends, luck. Finally a employment agency specialized in engineering may be much better than anything like LinkedIn or other such. Just my thoughts, Bon Chance Jon |
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