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Ask HN: What does an electrical engineer actually do at work?

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Re: Ask HN: What does an electrical engineer actually do at work?

#61

Post by uola »

antoineMoPa wrote: post #23

This year, I left my electrical engineering (EE) studies for software engineering. I had a lot of personal experience with coding before going in EE and I wondered if some hardware would make my life more interesting. After 1.25 years, I realized that I was spending all my life in a lab with no windows, to the smell of toxic soldering fumes, fighting against extremely annoying software (altium & other proprietary ove…

I think that's an unfair comparison. The reason for EE is to in the end ship products, often many, that works a long time. You can (to some extent) disregard good practices, barely read the datasheets and cobble things together in EE too, but that isn't the default. Make a novel enough amplifier and it can be relevant for decades, while technologies like webgl are often emerging until they are obsolete.

Re: Ask HN: What does an electrical engineer actually do at work?

#62

Post by mattbillenstein »

I've lived two careers -- one in semiconductors doing ASIC physical design (highly aided by writing software I might add), and another in startups doing backend database, systems, the gamut of server-side programming.

The hardware job seemed more like "real" engineering -- it was more rigorous, there was less room for error or experimenting. But, I got bored with it eventually -- it was the same thing, just a bigger chip, more people working on it, and a longer design cycle from one thing to the next. Also, it seemed like upward mobility was hard -- I didn't want to be a middle manager anyway, and it felt hard to have a large influence in a company with thousands of engineers. In the end, I felt I didn't want to die at that desk, so I switched into working for internet startups.

The software end of things has felt more creative and has definitely been more fun. It's more laid-back, people are generally a little more interesting and well-rounded, and you typically work at a place 2-4 years and then move onto something new -- which I like. You're generally working in smaller teams and you get to work on a variety of different pieces of the system if that's what you like to do.

All in all, they were both rewarding experiences with good compensation -- the software thing might end up being more lucrative in the end and I just sorta have more fun doing it. At the time I made the switch, I took a pretty large pay cut going from a mid-level hardware engineer to a junior software engineer, but it's one of the best decisions I ever made looking back.

Re: Ask HN: What does an electrical engineer actually do at work?

#63

Post by mac01021 »

cushychicken wrote: post #18
mac01021 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A significant fraction of designing any complex system consists of getting the people who design different parts to agree on the interface between those parts.

That was a very high minded response to an attempt at commiserating.

Yeah. Sorry...

I do think, though, that it's possible for an organization to structure it's meetings so that they're a useful and productive part of the job, and not a thing to be dreaded in the least.

I've seen this done with varying degrees of success/failure.

Re: Ask HN: What does an electrical engineer actually do at work?

#64

Post by rfdave »

sunstone wrote: post #55
madengr wrote: post #32

Been doing RF/Microwave/Antenna design for 20 years. Fortunately I have stayed hands-on with hardware development. Start with simulation, then PCB layout, followed by lots of measurements in the lab. Sometimes meetings for customer requirements, writing technical parts of proposals, getting capital equipment purchased, etc.

Hey what's with that 'path loss' equation? Looks sketchy to me.

Looks sketchy in what way?

Re: Ask HN: What does an electrical engineer actually do at work?

#65

Post by StavrosK »

bass_case wrote: post #49
cushychicken wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think Altium is bad, you've never used Orcad. If you think Orcad is good, you've never used Eagle.

If you think eagle is good, you've never used KiCad.

Seriously, I love KiCAD. So much better than eagle, and open source.

Re: Ask HN: What does an electrical engineer actually do at work?

#66

Post by DanBC »

fake-name wrote: post #36
antoineMoPa wrote: post #23

This year, I left my electrical engineering (EE) studies for software engineering. I had a lot of personal experience with coding before going in EE and I wondered if some hardware would make my life more interesting. After 1.25 years, I realized that I was spending all my life in a lab with no windows, to the smell of toxic soldering fumes, fighting against extremely annoying software (altium & other proprietary ove…

If you think Altium is a "overpriced piece of technical debt", HOLY SHIT you should try anything it competes with. It's sooo much nicer then anything else out there in the EDA market. At my work they use Proteus, and it's horrible. Also, solder fumes aren't toxic!

> Also, solder fumes aren't toxic!

If the solder has lead the fumes are toxic. If the solder has a rosin flux the fumes are toxic, and the operator needs ventilation to keep exposure below recommended levels.

It's a bad idea to be breathing in the fumes, but obviously this depends on how much you're breathing. At most risk are people who solder all day everyday.

Re: Ask HN: What does an electrical engineer actually do at work?

#69

Post by MarkMMullin »

lj3 wrote: post #47
clw8 wrote: post #28

Just a note that if you go into automotive, you will spend 90% of your time in Matlab/Simulink. Pretty fun IMO.

Can you elaborate on that? What do you use Matlab/Simulink for in the automotive industry?

Enable wireless hacking gateways for cars ?

Re: Ask HN: What does an electrical engineer actually do at work?

#70

Post by posterboy »

uola wrote: post #61
antoineMoPa wrote: post #23

This year, I left my electrical engineering (EE) studies for software engineering. I had a lot of personal experience with coding before going in EE and I wondered if some hardware would make my life more interesting. After 1.25 years, I realized that I was spending all my life in a lab with no windows, to the smell of toxic soldering fumes, fighting against extremely annoying software (altium & other proprietary ove…

I think that's an unfair comparison. The reason for EE is to in the end ship products, often many, that works a long time. You can (to some extent) disregard good practices, barely read the datasheets and cobble things together in EE too, but that isn't the default. Make a novel enough amplifier and it can be relevant for decades, while technologies like webgl are often emerging until they are obsolete.

It seems to me, that amplifier design is so slow moving, that the argument is not really in its favor. However, the abstract point makes sense, because only talking about low hanging fruit is misleading. From some higher vantage point, I guess, the fields are too different to be comparable at all, up to the point where it all might come together through maths.

Computer Engineering at the intersection of EE and CS is all of both or nothing really, depending on your point of view. A respected man once said, every idiot can count to one ;) But then again, digital and analog with enough precision seem to be the same thing from different perspectives. So, I'm not sure whether it makes sense to look for differences between those.

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