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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?

#41

Post by Yaggo »

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…

EE & programming skills combined are superb if you are into robotics, embedded stuff, physical products in general. I do front-end web programming for living but spend my freetime in my "EE lab", self-taughting¹ myself to get out of "yet another React app" limbo.

¹) I don't expect to find a real EE job without a degree, more like a generalist who also has clue about electronics.

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

#42

Post by cushychicken »

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!

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

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

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

#44

Post by cushychicken »

patchorang wrote: post #30

There are a bunch of EEs in here complaining about the software they have to use. I took a few EE courses in school and the only thing I remember is having to use horrible software. Why hasn't someone made good software for EEs to use? And if the have, why do no EEs use it?

Most of my professional experience has been with Orcad, and the folks who write that tend to write it for people who pay good money for it. Generally, those people tend to be in the semiconductor industry. As a result, there are a ton of features in the Cadence suite that are highly optimized for that industry. That doesn't make them easy for laymen to use. It just makes it easier for the people who are keeping Cadence in business.

That's my read on it, anyway. Anyone who figures out a way to make EE CAD software better and easier to use stands to do well for themselves.

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

mighty_atomic_c wrote: post #27

I'm just a beginner. I write in hardware description languages for test benches, simulations, checkers and constrained random tests. I've also done PCB layout (hobbyist to RF microstrip), GUI programming (I don't enjoy that), and using IC design software for.simulation and layout. I also spend a lot of time working with hardware. The debugging process is very challenging, and certain aspects of it can be tedious. Ove…

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by dwd »

madengr wrote: post #35
patchorang wrote: post #30

There are a bunch of EEs in here complaining about the software they have to use. I took a few EE courses in school and the only thing I remember is having to use horrible software. Why hasn't someone made good software for EEs to use? And if the have, why do no EEs use it?

There is lots of good software for EE, it just costs $$.

I worked on maintaining this software quite a few years back. It was quite innovative when first released. http://solutionselectricalsoftware.com/

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

#48

Post by yessql »

patchorang wrote: post #30

There are a bunch of EEs in here complaining about the software they have to use. I took a few EE courses in school and the only thing I remember is having to use horrible software. Why hasn't someone made good software for EEs to use? And if the have, why do no EEs use it?

Not a big enough market to make money making a better product. The tooling is super complicated and there are a limited number of potential users.

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

#49

Post by bass_case »

cushychicken wrote: post #42
fake-name wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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.

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

#50

Post by jc4p »

cushychicken wrote: post #42
fake-name wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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

What's the learning curve on newer tools for someone who has been using EAGLE for years? I'm scared of change.
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