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The reason I'm asking is that I'm a pure software engineer, and I sometimes wonder if I'd have been happier on the hardware side. But I've gotten some reports that these days the work isn't actually all that different.
Like software engineers, there are many different jobs for electrical engineers. Some are more design and simulation, some are testbench, some are more theory and down to the physics level. Others are support and sales. Larger companies might have more defined roles, whereas others do a bit of each.
If you want to work with some hardware, or on a test bench with lab equipment, you can always move over to embedded, as there are many jobs available; some even say it's less competitive.
- Work on Schematics and layout for various different boards (usually only get time for one each day). - Go to meetings with multiple different engineering teams to make sure that cross-functional requirements are being met (usually the software and mechanical guys making demands of what they need which just means what they want to make their life easier by making the EE's suffer). - troubleshoot issues on the already built hardware and add the fixes to upcoming revisions. - Argue with purchasing department about the reason I need to get a certain type of testing equipment.
-A lot of component research and validation and meetings with vendors to determine if that components is right one.
and this is just the pure hardware tasks. There is always potential to have to deal with firmware issues as well.
I may spent half my day at my desk, at least an hour or two in a lab and the rest is for meetings.
Generally, "embedded systems" implies some programming as well, but I do little to none of that. I think I'm the exception rather than the rule in that sense.
If you wanna get simplistic about it, I spend half my time playing "connect the dots" in overpriced software, and the other half arguing with people about where I decided to put the lines.
On the one hand, there's a lot more standardization in the components I string together to make a working system. On the other hand, it can be just as hard to track down the source of a problem. You happen to have caught me at a point where I'm stuck trying to figure out the proper answer to a mysterious boot issue, and let me tell you what - it's about as frustrating as frustrating gets. You have to push yourself to think hard about what you haven't done, even when you've done everything by the book. ("The book" in this context is documentation, design guides, processor reference manuals - things that tell you what to do to get your system working.)
Point I'm trying to illustrate - don't think that hardware is any easier than software. It's very, very gratifying to see something real, that you can hold in your hands, work. Doubly so when people actually use your stuff and tell you how much they love it. (Yay, consumer electronics!)
Typical day as an Electrical engineer at a autonomous vehicles company. - Work on Schematics and layout for various different boards (usually only get time for one each day). - Go to meetings with multiple different engineering teams to make sure that cross-functional requirements are being met (usually the software and mechanical guys making demands of what they need which just means what they want to make their lif…