Would you employ someone without a degree in electronics?

[Someone]

As a professional engineer I would not accept a job in which a non professional engineer was the manager.

Woah, what environments are you working in? The penetration of professional status in the electronics fields is vanishingly low and dropping year on year. I've met so few professional engineers in electronics (zero!) that it would seem they must all be hiding somewhere.

[Someone]

As a professional engineer I would not accept a job in which a non professional engineer was the manager.

Why not ? What is the role of a manager ?
A manager is there to schedule the workload and to make sure the people doing the work have the resources to do so. If he understands what the people under his management do that is a bonus.
A good manager does not make technical decisions unless there is a duality.

Maybe you misunderstand what managing is. Understandable as too many managers are not really managers.

A good manager goes a long way, the best managers I (from my view) have worked with were those who naturally rose up the ranks as they understood the challenges of getting the job done. No difference what their educational background was, at one point I was managed by a carpenter by trade, top bloke and kept a diverse team productive.

[mtdoc]

So the question is Someone, do you have a degree in electronics and have you been employed? 

[tggzzz]

I was once my manger's manger

It was a matrix-management organisation, I was a project leader, and my line manager was a also project member. There were no problems since the responsibilities required of each role were different and understood, and were not in conflict.

The sole purpose of a manager is to create the conditions in which their managees can achieve. What that means varies widely between different situations and establishments.

[TheNewLab]

AN interesting note in the USA. About becoming an electrician union job and all!
  The job outlook is very positive because many of the professional field electricians are retiring (baby boomers). A large shortage is projected. With the increase in electronic applications and the need to maintain so many systems, the US will need many more qualified electricians.  The projections are especially great in commercial and industrial environments, (a real chance to try out your test gear on high KV and KAmp  systems!)
These are union jobs, union pay, union benefits. There is such a projected shortage that salaries are expected to jump, and possibly expedited advancement from journeyman to master electrician.

Hey maybe a retired magazine photographer can embark upon a new career! Lets see, qualifying for master electrician at age 72...

[TheNewLab]

Oh, so a degree may not be  important. I would guess there are plenty of "oldtimers' out there that advanced well beyond union work in the field "way back when"

[vk6zgo]

It strikes me this whole topic is about as useful as, in a different sphere, asking "would you employ someone without a medical degree?"

It is well known that newly-graduated doctors rely very heavily on nurses particularly in their early days, see very humourous first-hand examples at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XxcjAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT201&lpg=PT201&dq=%22phil+hammond%22+nurse+needle+in+vein&source=bl&ots=L7wauIs7Pu&sig=UwGmQPdnqm9BPlX107WbVOT-osw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GhXZVMPYOqWi7AbSvoH4CA&redir_esc=y Yes, the nurses (illegally) inserted needles because the newly graduated doctor couldn't. The doctor made the tea and got the credit for inserting the needles

But does that mean that the doctor's qualification is a waste of time that should be ignored? Of course not, unless you are a nurse with an enormous chip on your shoulder.

Personally, if I have a kidney problem, I'm going to want it diagnosed and treated by a doctor, not a nurse.
If I need to have a barb removed from my finger, or have my leg plastered, I'd prefer a nurse to do it.

Any dissenting views?

Oh yes, nurses can probably run medical businesses as well as doctors, if not better. Shrug. Big deal. (Particularly since most doctors  actively don't want to run businesses: they want to cure patients.) Doesn't change who I want to diagnose/treat my child's problems.

The OP specifically said a Master's Degree.
Most GPs ,at least in Oz, are Bachelors of Medicine.

Why would you accept a person with a lesser Degree to look after your nealth,& insist on a higher one for Electronics?

In Oz,most Medical businesses are run by neither Doctors nor Nurses,but by people with qualifications in Management.
I personally think this is a backward step,as if a Doctor or Nurse is the Manager,they can be called on to do the job they are trained for in an emergency-----a "Suit" is useless in such cases.

[Someone]

So the question is Someone, do you have a degree in electronics and have you been employed? 

I've a 4 year degree and have held professional status. These have opened doors to me and got jobs I would not have been able to get without them, in many large organisations HR pre filter the resumes and may insist on a degree even if its not actually needed for the role.

[mtdoc]

So the question is Someone, do you have a degree in electronics and have you been employed? 

I've a 4 year degree and have held professional status. These have opened doors to me and got jobs I would not have been able to get without them, in many large organisations HR pre filter the resumes and may insist on a degree even if its not actually needed for the role.

Thanks for answering but it was really just a rhetorical question - just in jest given your name and the title of the post. Maybe I'm the only one who sees the humor in that..

[vk6zgo]

Free electron said:

"... Newly minted doctors go on training under experienced surgeons .."

One of the reasons why I would refuse  to work in an environment where a non engineer was a manager.

I do not want to be a doctor managed by a matron.

Self styled techos are just that ... matrons.

This is not being disparaging , simply realistic. Years of experience in a specialised area do not make a techo an engineer.

To wit.. it takes four years of bloody hard work to acquire the qualification .. it takes 5 minutes to recognise the sharp end of a screw driver.

IF the company requires an engineer .. they will get an engineer.

If the company requires someone to repair boards they will get a technician.

 

Properly trained Technicians have a solid grounding in Electronics Theory---not at the same level as a BE,but,not to be sneezed at,either.
In many cases this is obtained during a formal Training Scheme or an Apprenticeship of around 4-5 years,which includes both Theory & hands-on work.----considerably harder work than "recognising the sharp end of a screwdriver".

In the past,many organisations followed a similar regime with their Engineers,where the "Trainee Engineer"was employed in the field under the mentoring eye of a Senior Engineer.
The great thing about this is the EE student was paid a living wage,& didn't have to "starve in a garret".
He/She,also got a feel for real world problems & solutions.

We now live in a more mean-spirited world,& are the worse for it,as both Techs & EEs are left to their own resources.


Re: Employing a Tech to "repair boards"---this is more the job of a Process Worker.
Techs more usually,find & repair faults in complete assemblies,using their knowledge of Theory & their practical experience----Engineers, in my experience are not so good at fault finding,purely because they don't do as much of it.

[free_electron]

And in this example, to even start to get the desirable experience requires a degree.

That's like saying in order to attain the richest color of yellow you need to start out as a banana ...

[free_electron]

t a, doesn't indicate who is more likely to choose an appropriate control-system structure or RF modulation scheme.

Appropriateness for the job in hand is key. All else is indistinguishable from a chip on the shoulder.

Appropriateness is key. But , it is NOT an ee who designs a control system structure or picks a modulation scheme.
An ee designs the circuitry that implements it. Control systems are modeled by physicists and mathematicians. That is NOT something you leave to a an engineer with sub par math skills !
There are ee that wear that hat but for anything serious i would not assign that task to an ee. You need a different kind of gun for that.

Same for modulation schemes. That has NOTHING to do with electronics. Thats all mathematics.
When i was working on ADSL we had several scientists and mathematicians to work out the algorithms and develop the cordic. Theose guys spent all day pounding equations i to matlab. Eventually they ecplained to the software guys how to build the algorithm and to the electronics engineers how much signal noise war required and how many bits the converter needed to be and how fast to get the right response out of it. The engineers then took off designing that.

Coming up with the circuitry to implement it is the task of an ee.

[free_electron]

-I'd want the guy with a lot of experience. -

Agreed.end of the day, you want the job done right, degree or not.

And in this example, to even start to get the desirable experience requires a degree. No degree = no experience.

Are you still going argue that a degree is irrelevant in this case?

Can you name me some specific examples where a degree is required in electronics to get experience?

The example under discussion was, in case you had inexplicably missed it, the medical profession.

From your example, can you explain why competence in running a business requires compentence in electronic engineering. To me there are orthogonal: as a EE (doctor) I want to build new things (repair people), not reconcile accounts and deal with corporation tax etc.

What are you blabbering about ? You dont need a degree en electronics to become a doctor, neither do you need to be a doctor to get a degree in electronics. 'Building new things is not lime 'repairing people'... Go drunk, you are home ... Or something like that

You cannot cross different fields over. It doesnt make sense

[free_electron]

Free electron said:

"... Newly minted doctors go on training under experienced surgeons .."

One of the reasons why I would refuse  to work in an environment where a non engineer was a manager.

I do not want to be a doctor managed by a matron.

Self styled techos are just that ... matrons.

This is not being disparaging , simply realistic. Years of experience in a specialised area do not make a techo an engineer.

To wit.. it takes four years of bloody hard work to acquire the qualification .. it takes 5 minutes to recognise the sharp end of a screw driver.

IF the company requires an engineer .. they will get an engineer.

If the company requires someone to repair boards they will get a technician.

 

You still do not understand the concept of 'manager' most managers are business people. They dont even understand ohms law and they don't need to. They meed superior planning and negotiation skills and business acumen to make sure everything is handled on time on budget and within resources.

What ou are saying is like i would not want to work for apple because tim cook is not an engineer. I would not want to work for microsoft because bill gates doesnt have a degree in writing code. Most companies are run by managers that have no clue what the footfolk does or how they do it.

[Galenbo]

Then there are drop-outs, such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs ...

A lot of dropouts become salesmen. Some sell millions of potatoes.

[Rigby]

What you are saying is like i would not want to work for apple because tim cook is not an engineer. I would not want to work for microsoft because bill gates doesnt have a degree in writing code. Most companies are run by managers that have no clue what the footfolk does or how they do it.

It's often best that they don't know what the footfolk do or how they do it.  It usually makes for decisions that are best for the business.

[tggzzz]

t a, doesn't indicate who is more likely to choose an appropriate control-system structure or RF modulation scheme.

Appropriateness for the job in hand is key. All else is indistinguishable from a chip on the shoulder.

Appropriateness is key. But , it is NOT an ee who designs a control system structure or picks a modulation scheme.
An ee designs the circuitry that implements it. Control systems are modeled by physicists and mathematicians. That is NOT something you leave to a an engineer with sub par math skills !

In that case not only am I an EE, I am also a mathematician and also a physicist.

I suggest you tell all the people in the University of Bristol's Faculty of Engineering that they aren't engineers. You will hear a large guffaw, followed by the sound of people ignoring you. (The same is true for other institutions, to my certain knowledge).

Summary: you really haven't got a clue about this topic; your gobsmackingly ridiculous statements clearly demonstrate that to anybody reading this thread.

[Zero999]

Properly trained Technicians have a solid grounding in Electronics Theory---not at the same level as a BE,but,not to be sneezed at,either.
In many cases this is obtained during a formal Training Scheme or an Apprenticeship of around 4-5 years,which includes both Theory & hands-on work.----considerably harder work than "recognising the sharp end of a screwdriver".

In the past,many organisations followed a similar regime with their Engineers,where the "Trainee Engineer"was employed in the field under the mentoring eye of a Senior Engineer.
The great thing about this is the EE student was paid a living wage,& didn't have to "starve in a garret".
He/She,also got a feel for real world problems & solutions.

We now live in a more mean-spirited world,& are the worse for it,as both Techs & EEs are left to their own resources.


Re: Employing a Tech to "repair boards"---this is more the job of a Process Worker.
Techs more usually,find & repair faults in complete assemblies,using their knowledge of Theory & their practical experience----Engineers, in my experience are not so good at fault finding,purely because they don't do as much of it.

Fault finding and repair is often much more difficult than designing something from scratch, especially when one doesn't have popper documentation or a schematic. The process often requires a level of reverse engineering.

Many technicians also end up being promoted to engineering positions degree or no degree.

[free_electron]

t a, doesn't indicate who is more likely to choose an appropriate control-system structure or RF modulation scheme.

Appropriateness for the job in hand is key. All else is indistinguishable from a chip on the shoulder.

Appropriateness is key. But , it is NOT an ee who designs a control system structure or picks a modulation scheme.
An ee designs the circuitry that implements it. Control systems are modeled by physicists and mathematicians. That is NOT something you leave to a an engineer with sub par math skills !

In that case not only am I an EE, I am also a mathematician and also a physicist.

I suggest you tell all the people in the University of Bristol's Faculty of Engineering that they aren't engineers. You will hear a large guffaw, followed by the sound of people ignoring you. (The same is true for other institutions, to my certain knowledge).

Summary: you really haven't got a clue about this topic; your gobsmackingly ridiculous statements clearly demonstrate that to anybody reading this thread.

hold it. 'Department of engineering' . engineering of what ? There are lots of different fields and subfield in engineering. One of em might well be control systems.

My claim is designing control systems is outside the scope of EE  ElectricalEngineers.
There are people much better suited for that kind of work.

An EE designs circuitry , there may be some , note the usage of the word SOME , control stuff involved .  Everywhere i have worked we had people that were specialized in such things. Some of these people were mathematicians, some where physicists, some were EE's with an additional degree in applied mathematics. I have never seen a situation where a complex control system was designed from scratch by an EE.

Harddisks for example are complex mechatronic systems and have very complex control loops dealing with the mehchanical mass, magnetic fields and all the other stuff. That was all modeled by dedicated people that didn't know the difference between a mos and a bipolar transistor. they would set up the criteria for the system : we need this bandwidh, this impulse response , this such and so. now go design it. then the EE's kicked in making the active filters with programmable poles and gains. meanwhile the control people explained to the programmers how the software algorithms had to work and what timeslot they had for the code to run in.

you gave the example of that windmill vibration. i cannot believe such a problem would be tackled by an EE. you need people that have a notion of mechanics and aerodynamics and other stuff that impact a windmill. there may be EE's out there that have those skills because they did additional work post graduation. but a newly minted EE is not capable of doing that.

[tggzzz]

t a, doesn't indicate who is more likely to choose an appropriate control-system structure or RF modulation scheme.

Appropriateness for the job in hand is key. All else is indistinguishable from a chip on the shoulder.

Appropriateness is key. But , it is NOT an ee who designs a control system structure or picks a modulation scheme.
An ee designs the circuitry that implements it. Control systems are modeled by physicists and mathematicians. That is NOT something you leave to a an engineer with sub par math skills !

In that case not only am I an EE, I am also a mathematician and also a physicist.

I suggest you tell all the people in the University of Bristol's Faculty of Engineering that they aren't engineers. You will hear a large guffaw, followed by the sound of people ignoring you. (The same is true for other institutions, to my certain knowledge).

Summary: you really haven't got a clue about this topic; your gobsmackingly ridiculous statements clearly demonstrate that to anybody reading this thread.

hold it. 'Department of engineering' . engineering of what ? There are lots of different fields and subfield in engineering. One of em might well be control systems.

My claim is designing control systems is outside the scope of EE  ElectricalEngineers.
There are people much better suited for that kind of work.

An EE designs circuitry , there may be some , note the usage of the word SOME , control stuff involved .  Everywhere i have worked we had people that were specialized in such things. Some of these people were mathematicians, some where physicists, some were EE's with an additional degree in applied mathematics. I have never seen a situation where a complex control system was designed from scratch by an EE.

Harddisks for example are complex mechatronic systems and have very complex control loops dealing with the mehchanical mass, magnetic fields and all the other stuff. That was all modeled by dedicated people that didn't know the difference between a mos and a bipolar transistor. they would set up the criteria for the system : we need this bandwidh, this impulse response , this such and so. now go design it. then the EE's kicked in making the active filters with programmable poles and gains. meanwhile the control people explained to the programmers how the software algorithms had to work and what timeslot they had for the code to run in.

you gave the example of that windmill vibration. i cannot believe such a problem would be tackled by an EE. you need people that have a notion of mechanics and aerodynamics and other stuff that impact a windmill. there may be EE's out there that have those skills because they did additional work post graduation. but a newly minted EE is not capable of doing that.

Your problem is that you have worked in an environment in which you have become very specialised. Presumably such specialisation was valued and rewarded. Consequently you are blinkered.

Not everywhere is like that.

If you look at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/engineering/ you will see that it has departments of civil, mechanical, computer, aerospace, electrical and electronic engineering, plus engineering maths. Having worked with three of the EE professors before they became professors, and some of their PhD students, I know for certain that my statements are correct. Have a look at their CVs.

I still go to some of the meetings open to the general public. Interdisciplinary contacts, depth and breath of expertise are clearly valued and expected.

[calexanian]

Wow. Lots of strong opinions here.

That said I agree with everything Vincent has said!

[Howardlong]

Appropriateness is key. But , it is NOT an ee who designs a control system structure or picks a modulation scheme.
An ee designs the circuitry that implements it. Control systems are modeled by physicists and mathematicians. That is NOT something you leave to a an engineer with sub par math skills !

you gave the example of that windmill vibration. i cannot believe such a problem would be tackled by an EE. you need people that have a notion of mechanics and aerodynamics and other stuff that impact a windmill. there may be EE's out there that have those skills because they did additional work post graduation. but a newly minted EE is not capable of doing that.

As an example, I have designed and implemented modulation schemes for satellites, from structuring the data schema to writing the code and building both exciter and receiver hardware. For that you need to have a working knowledge of orbital mechanics, projected spin rates, doppler effects, power budgeting, RF link budgeting, reasonable sensor parameter ranges (eg thermal effects), embedded and non-embedded software development, DSP, algorithm development, coding schemes, modulation schemes, error correction methodologies, hardware selection and design and know one end of a soldering iron from the other. For the demodulator, you even need control systems knowledge.

But I'm not a physicist. I gained almost every single one of those skills after graduating as an EE without any formal training, but I do know how to read books and observe stuff for myself. 

[coppice]

Appropriateness is key. But , it is NOT an ee who designs a control system structure or picks a modulation scheme.
An ee designs the circuitry that implements it. Control systems are modeled by physicists and mathematicians. That is NOT something you leave to a an engineer with sub par math skills !

In what parallel universe are the majority of people developing control systems and modulation schemes not EEs? You certainly don't want to give those tasks to the EEs who avoided the maths options like the plague at college, but control and modulation are still the domain of EEs. Why do you think so may EE graduates from top colleges are grabbed by the finance industry? Its because they studied control theory in depth.

[SteveyG]

hold it. 'Department of engineering' . engineering of what ? There are lots of different fields and subfield in engineering. One of em might well be control systems.

My claim is designing control systems is outside the scope of EE  ElectricalEngineers.
There are people much better suited for that kind of work.

An EE designs circuitry , there may be some , note the usage of the word SOME , control stuff involved .  Everywhere i have worked we had people that were specialized in such things. Some of these people were mathematicians, some where physicists, some were EE's with an additional degree in applied mathematics. I have never seen a situation where a complex control system was designed from scratch by an EE.

Harddisks for example are complex mechatronic systems and have very complex control loops dealing with the mehchanical mass, magnetic fields and all the other stuff. That was all modeled by dedicated people that didn't know the difference between a mos and a bipolar transistor. they would set up the criteria for the system : we need this bandwidh, this impulse response , this such and so. now go design it. then the EE's kicked in making the active filters with programmable poles and gains. meanwhile the control people explained to the programmers how the software algorithms had to work and what timeslot they had for the code to run in.

you gave the example of that windmill vibration. i cannot believe such a problem would be tackled by an EE. you need people that have a notion of mechanics and aerodynamics and other stuff that impact a windmill. there may be EE's out there that have those skills because they did additional work post graduation. but a newly minted EE is not capable of doing that.

I think you're out of touch with what the university syllabus is for engineering. Control theory and maths was around half of my electronics engineering degree. Control is heavily taught within the department of engineering at most universities.

[owiecc]

An EE designs circuitry , there may be some , note the usage of the word SOME , control stuff involved .  Everywhere i have worked we had people that were specialized in such things. Some of these people were mathematicians, some where physicists, some were EE's with an additional degree in applied mathematics. I have never seen a situation where a complex control system was designed from scratch by an EE.

Most of our EE students design very complex control schemes be it for sensorless machine control using Kalman filters or a nonlinear control schemes for DC/DC converters on the last years of their study. This is not something out of an ordinary.

In production environment, where a system is very complex and one has to be state-of-the-art in every small detail, it makes sense to hire various specialists to optimize each element of the design. But it is not needed all the time. Very often EE or someone from other fields have to wear different hats and know different fields. How else will you marry all these thing together?

I had a professor from control department asking us what is this d variable half way through the project. It was a duty cycle in a buck converter! He was amazing when it came to nonlinear control, the math that an EE student and him made was perfectly correct, but he didn't care enough to learn about the physical system he was controlling.