What PCB should I design next to prepare for a career in hardware design?

[natantes]

I've designed a flight controller, a Raspberry Pi IoT board, a simple current-sensing board, and an audio board with multiple features in mind. My goal is to become a professional PCB/hardware designer and eventually land a job in the field.

What would you recommend I design next to build practical, industry-relevant skills and make my portfolio stronger? I'd appreciate suggestions for projects that would challenge me and help bridge the gap between hobby projects and professional hardware design.

[Conrad Hoffman]

It's a big world of stuff so it's hard to suggest what direction to go in. Where I work, we concentrate on the very small. Things like motor drivers in a 10 x 10 mm space, including power conversion. How many watts do you think you can convert in that space? The world is also going higher and higher in frequency. Have you done any boards that operate at 1 GHz and above, requiring specific transmission lines and perfect terminations? Have you done any boards with tiny ball grid parts? Look at the various "house" magazines and ask, "how did they do that". I would also get In Compliance magazine, as you can't sell anything if it doesn't meet standards, something you want to happen the first time around, or it gets expensive. https://incompliancemag.com/

[natantes]

Thanks for the advice! GHz-level design and BGA packages sound interesting, but they might be a bit too big of a step for me right now as I'm just starting out and hoping to land a junior hardware design role.

You mentioned that your workplace focuses on compact motor drivers and power conversion. I'd be particularly interested in learning what skills you'd recommend developing in that area. For example, what would you expect a junior engineer to know about power electronics, component selection, thermal management, and PCB layout? And is there a particular project you'd recommend as a good starting point?

[Conrad Hoffman]

In all honesty, we don't expect any special knowledge beyond the usual layout skills and how to use the particular software tools we use. If we only looked for people with experience at the level of miniaturization we usually use, we'd never hire anybody! We're in a niche market with highly capacitive piezoelectric motors and size requirements where you have to break a lot of rules to get the job done. That means knowing what rules you can break without getting bitten on the backside and working closely with PCB and flex vendors so they can hold crazy tolerances without having too high a rejection rate. You only get that with experience.

One other aspect to think about is most things today are tightly integrated with the mechanical CAD models. In our case, knowing Solidworks, or being able to pick it up quickly, is a huge asset.

Caveat- I'm mostly retired now so everything I know is either obsolete or soon will be! Maybe there won't be any PCB designers because AI will be doing the bulk of the work. I do say, if you aren't learning how to take maximum advantage of AI today, somebody who does will be eating your lunch tomorrow.

[PGPG]

What would you recommend

I'd recommend to read articles about PCB design I have linked at KiCad forum long ago:
https://forum.kicad.info/t/decoupling-capacitor-via-placement/25132/14
https://forum.kicad.info/t/decoupling-capacitor-via-placement/25132/19

Since 2 months KiCad forum don't likes me (it says that my browser is not accepted, but I have tried several browsers and I rather think it is Win7 that is not accepted).
I have tried to follow these links and following links that are there looks not working for me. I hope for others it is still working.

[negativ3]

Have you taken any designs to final, working PCBs?

[Smokey]

Is "layout guy" still a thing?  Like a guy that doesn't have a degree in anything and just does layouts from a schematic someone else made? 

[EggertEnjoyer123]

Thanks for the advice! GHz-level design and BGA packages sound interesting, but they might be a bit too big of a step for me right now as I'm just starting out and hoping to land a junior hardware design role.

You mentioned that your workplace focuses on compact motor drivers and power conversion. I'd be particularly interested in learning what skills you'd recommend developing in that area. For example, what would you expect a junior engineer to know about power electronics, component selection, thermal management, and PCB layout? And is there a particular project you'd recommend as a good starting point?

High frequency stuff isn't actually hard if you know the basic design guidelines such as not cutting up ground planes, watching return currents, etc.

Watch this video:

[Doctorandus_P]

One thing you can do is to get yourself a domain name and a web package, and then document your projects. Documentation is an important part of projects, and when you put it on a personal website, then you can put a link to it on your resume, so your potenial new employer can see what you've created.

EMI is also a big part of electronic design. You can learn about LISN, TEM-cells and do some EMC measurements on your circuits. Can you afford an oscilloscope, and something like the nanoVNA for measurements? For DIY projects, EMC is much less of a concern then for commercial products (which need to be certified, although I don't know the rules in Ethiopia). For DIY you don't need calibrated equipment, but doing some relative measurements, and the differences when you make changes to a layout, and documenting it all shows to an (future) employer that you're serious about the topics, and what skills are. Also add dates to your projects, so you can show progress in your skills over time.

I once built a gadget that used both the ADC of an uC, and used the same uC to multiplex a keyboard, and all build on perf (matrix) board. And although the circuit worked, interference from the keyboard multiplexing was so horrible that the ADC was barely usable. That was a good lesson for me.

[Psi]

'layout guy' is still a thing, but it's often for speaclised PCBs like massiveBGAs/RF/Highspeed etc.. Or something really huge with a ton of layers that needs an autorouter.

For most small to medium companies your typical PCB (MCU and some IO) is often designed by the same Design Engineer position that may also be making the schematic. Usually some engineers like PCB design more than others so it's normal that someone might become the unofficial layout guy, or it might be something all the engineers want to do and fight over getting

[MariuszD]

On forums, you can find many posts with questions about poorly functioning DC/DC converters or those generating excessive interference.
A common cause is a poor layout. Have you already completed this stage of learning?

[Psi]

On forums, you can find many posts with questions about poorly functioning DC/DC converters or those generating excessive interference.
A common cause is a poor layout. Have you already completed this stage of learning?

Yes, designing DCDC converters requires some skill when it comes to PCB layout.
That being said, just following all the app notes about EMC (and using the exact pcb layout given in the app notes) will usually get you by with most IC-based DCDC converters. Even if you're not all that familiar with the DCDC PCB rules.
Typically the more power it's switching the more critical things get.