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Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

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Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#161

Post by baka367 »

I graduated from EE, spent many years learning how electromagnetic fields impact traces if they are positioned incorrectly, how to measure radiation patterns and design antennas. I could still design a simple sensor module without having touched the field for 10 years.

I am more than happy to be a software engineer and earn 3x over what I would earn for a much more stressful job as an EE. A software bug in production or a bad deployment - do an RCA and you are fine. Ship a PCB to mass production with a weird design fault you somehow missed through all the Greek versions.. and you have a nice bill to explain to the management.

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#162

Post by jimkleiber »

killjoywashere wrote: post #119

EE spent so many years making sure everyone knew it's impossibly hard, the professors eat their young, etc. I've seen this in other professions where the incumbents desperately want to impose, in actuality, the uphill-both-ways life story they believe they endured. And then they are shocked when the young peace out. The military, and their insanely rigorous special warfare training. The medical profession in general.…

I started out in EE and switched to Intercultural Communications lol. Not because I couldn't hack it, I was probably near the top of my class in EE, I just thought it was a lot of work and realized I liked human communication more than electrical communication. So I hear ya on the impossibly hard: I got good grades but all I did was study. When I switched, I still got good grades but also enjoyed a social life. But to each their own, I still code, but building tools to help me and others get better at communicating how we feel. So maybe EE didn't leave my bones completely :-)

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#164

Post by smilekzs »

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #151
imgabe wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. I went to school for EE, but was interested in Computer Science. There was a stigma to switching from EE to CS as taking an easier course because you couldn't hack it in EE. It was seen as a failure or a defeat. I toughed it out and graduated with an electrical engineering degree, but now I'm a programmer anyway. Wish I had just switched once I realized I liked CS more and saved a bunch of time.

I also went to school for EE, but after a summer job doing SW, I switched to CS when I got back in the fall. I think CS (a good program) teaches you fundamentally how Systems work, independent of the substrate. EE is actually rather trivial compared to the complexity of big systems. EEs just learn altium, read some data sheets, and poof, out pop the circuits. Throw it in LT spice if you think it'll impress the boss.…

If all you do is board-level integration of relatively low-speed stuff, then yes, SWE is more demanding.

But that's not even the tip of the iceberg in the EE world. To name a few: high speed digital (Gbps+), ASIC (digital vs. mixed signal, RTL vs. physical design, ...), RF, precision analog, both very low and very high power, photonics, EMI... Each of these subjects require deep, arcane domain knowledge on top of physics, AND lots of grinding + experience + tacit knowledge + know-how, much more than SWE.

Source: Electronics/Embedded hobbyist with an SWE day job.

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#165

Post by tqi »

killjoywashere wrote: post #119

EE spent so many years making sure everyone knew it's impossibly hard, the professors eat their young, etc. I've seen this in other professions where the incumbents desperately want to impose, in actuality, the uphill-both-ways life story they believe they endured. And then they are shocked when the young peace out. The military, and their insanely rigorous special warfare training. The medical profession in general.…

Is that not true of other majors? I experienced the undergrad ECE meat grinder firsthand, so that part definitely tracks, but I had always assumed it was the same for all other eng departments (including CS).

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#166

Post by visarga »

runnerup wrote: post #129
colinmhayes wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren’t any people over the age of like 35 who started their career in data science. Careers are sticky, people don’t like switching once they’re in one. They’re being trained quickly and I think you’re right, the salary used to be higher than a normal software dev but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

More like no one hires you into a new career after 35. I’m 34 now and it was hell getting into software engineering from chemical engineering even with good project experience and acing leetcode.

I switched from full stack to ML at 38. I was preparing for a few years by doing courses, personal projects and following new papers as they come up. When I got hired there was no issue with the fact that I was self trained - they have been interviewing for 6 months and failing every candidate by then.

Soon after I got hired I was myself part of the interviewing committee and saw the hiring situation first hand - most candidates can't program their way out of a shoe or explain how the most commonly used neural net layers work. I mean, I had one who couldn't open a TXT file in 30 minutes, the data file he was supposed to use in the problem.

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#167

Post by smilekzs »

dcolkitt wrote: post #145
tekla wrote: post #18

I moved into IT from "formal" engineering and its always frustrated me that a job that involves working on extremely expensive engines using upper level college math gets paid almost nothing compared to people who change colors on a webpage every once in a while. I've been on floors where multi-million dollar pieces of equipment are used to produce parts with obscene levels of precision being used by expert machinist…

If you think that’s bad, just wait until you see what salaries look like for postdocs in theoretical physics. The economy does not reward people for how smart they are, how impressive their credentials are, or how hard their skills were to learn. It rewards people who solve problems. Preferably problems that other rich people have. Many, many, many more rich people have website problems than PCB circuit board problem…

Nit: Printed Circuit Board circuit board

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#168

Post by dougmany »

scruple wrote: post #61
tekla wrote: post #18

I moved into IT from "formal" engineering and its always frustrated me that a job that involves working on extremely expensive engines using upper level college math gets paid almost nothing compared to people who change colors on a webpage every once in a while. I've been on floors where multi-million dollar pieces of equipment are used to produce parts with obscene levels of precision being used by expert machinist…

I left embedded for web in 2014 and I doubled my salary overnight. My experience from embedded translated to an ability to troubleshoot problems that baffled others and has led to a lot of personal career growth that I suspect I wouldn't have otherwise seen. Wish it wasn't like this, because I quite miss what I was doing in that previous life, but it is what it is.

I have an EE degree and was in embedded for a few years. I kept getting hired for that one problem, then was no longer needed. All the jobs I could find were short term contract work or "Thanks for fixing that, now we don't need you" situations. I still get emails about short term, in office work in the Midwest. I enjoyed the work but I couldn't find stable employment. Embedded worked out to be a good transition to software and then web development though.

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#170

Post by dougmany »

boppo1 wrote: post #88
tekla wrote: post #18

I moved into IT from "formal" engineering and its always frustrated me that a job that involves working on extremely expensive engines using upper level college math gets paid almost nothing compared to people who change colors on a webpage every once in a while. I've been on floors where multi-million dollar pieces of equipment are used to produce parts with obscene levels of precision being used by expert machinist…

>It makes no sense. Why is web software so easy to make money in? Why do we value hard engineering so little? Interest rate intervention (making them lower than equilibrium) changed the DCF valuation that is the fundamental way of evaluating business (i.e. people working together on large endeavors) to one where promising massive returns in the future(20+ years) made low returns in the near term (x now had to adjust…

Ironically, the 6 hour Fundamentals of Engineering test that I took after earning my EE degree had a section on Discounted Cash Flow. It is funny that you are using it now to explain why taking that has given me no utility so far.
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