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How does a recent grad find a job doing hardware design?

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virtualparticles:

--- Quote from: coppice on March 15, 2021, 02:51:04 pm ---
--- Quote from: catseye on March 13, 2021, 05:56:22 pm ---Is the 5+ years experience just a scare tactic? Otherwise I really don't see any recent grad positions that aren't software jobs.

--- End quote ---
No, its not a scare tactic. What would be the point of that? It means they want someone experienced. However, people looking for someone experienced are often starting a new team, and will also want some junior people. Its worth investigating this. Did you take part in any recruitment events at your college? A reason you don't see many starter jobs advertised is companies recruit most of their fresh graduate intake directly from colleges with a decent track record producing good graduates needed by their business areas.

--- End quote ---

@coppice nailed it. I'm hiring for an engineering team and I'm OK with a "fresh-out" if they're stellar, but I really do want someone with RF design experience. (I'm with a VNA company) I don't have a lot of time to mentor people and I have critical deadlines. If I spend all my time teaching, then I can't even do the needed work myself. Feel free to apply though, you can DM me.

ocset:
if you know software and want hardware work...then try for BLDC motor control jobs...which is kind of hardware....but is all software controlled.
But the solution to your problem, is get any job in electronics you can, and then put it on your cv, and then use it to apply for jobs that you want..........even a few months as a PCB assembler will make you more attractive to a hardware place.

And what about setting up on your own........design  say, a SMPS LED driver based  light bulb with a switch on it so that people can reduce the power......order the parts, build it, then try and get funding to produce it....you will fail to get funding...we all do........but put it on your cv anyway that you did it...it'll  catch some employers eye.

Better still, buy a BLDC and build an inverter and program it to drive the BLDC with a load jig....but thtas truly expensive, so maybe you have to do the lightbulb.

By the way, you might just have to put up with going to work somewhere near where you live right now...for some reason....especially when your a junior, its far easier to get work within commutable distance of where you live now.

So pick up that first job experience like this perhaps.

Also, you are in Dresden....what about moving to Berlin or the Rhein-Hohne canal region?...near Duisburg....those areas are very industrialised, and if you live there already  then you always have more chance of getting into a electronics place.......Already living reasonably near is a much bigger factor than you would think...especially for junior jobs.

Dresden is very remote....i think you need to move away.
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By the way, you write English like a Native, its very good, i take it that you are from UK?
They may be against you because of not knowing Brexit situation?
Maybe you widen your search to Netherlands/belgium/swiss/germany.....just to start you off.
Goodness forbid, you could even  come back to UK....but i woudlnt blame you if you wanted to stay there.

...
Also, apply for shed loads of jobs on the jobsites......recruiters will track you and pick up that you are hungry for work....so get churning out shedloads of job apps for any job thats kind of in the area that you want.

But also, i am surprised that you dont stay in software, where you seem  to already have experience.....surely that is your best chance?...then maybe later if you want to you can see an oppo to move into hardware....or maybe you will get payed so much in software you will just stay there?

By the way, what sort of hardware do you want to get into?...remember a lot of hardware has been farmed out to the  Far East...eg a lot of power supply design...not all of course.

I know a lot of embedded software engineers who design all the hardware that they interface with also...even do the little smps's that power their micro and circuitry


--- Quote ---My main focus was wireless communication systems, which turned out to be a lot of software and little hardware.
I do have an interest in hardware design though as it was what got me into EE In the first place. I do know a couple of programming languages and my 6 month internship was more on the continuous integration infrastructure / investigation of some OFDM extensions for 5G.
--- End quote ---
..forgive me for saying, but you sound like a software engineer who wants out....and people may wonder why you want to change...and if you do change to hardware, will you not want another change later?...they may think like this.

I do not know what level you are at in software...but if it was only really simple stuff you did, then i can understand you may want to change.....but employers are going to be looking for your experience base...and for you, at the moment, it looks like software.....so that surely would be your area of most job chances.....or are you saying that your skill level in software is not so good?,  and that you think you will get further if you go into hardware?

If you are a whizz at software then i woudl stick with that....if not, then perhaps apply for shedloads of jobs in software and hardware, and just take the first one that comes up...it'll be a start. Its awkward if you try to be too picky in the first place.

ocset:
Anyway, you say you want hardware......but your experience base is in software.......so why dont you try for jobs in "embedded software"......you will then be writing code to closely control the hardware around your micro.
And (specially if you are in UK), i can garantee you that your company will not have hardware engineers who can design all the hardware,............so that will give you your chance to elope into hardware.....if you want to.

Why am i helping  you?....well, once you get  yourself a tasty job in say the super-industrialised Ruhr Region of Germany, you can write me a nice reference to get me over there too...(only joking!)...mind you, that area round Duisburg, Wuppertal, Essen etc etc, looks like any Electronics Engineer's paradise....hardware or software....or both!

Also, by the way, for many years ive been thinking of setting up an autonomous vehicle company, with robots to do stuff like paint walls etc......i reckon i could write the software specs to control the BLDCs etc......and between us we could design the robots. Maybe you can get some grant from the German Engineering ministry and we can get started on this?.......i mean........Germany is the best place to do this sort of thing....send an email to your local politician or Engineering minister...cant hurt to try?

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