I should have loved electrical engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#21

Post by lizknope » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 11:52 AM UTC

I learned BASIC when I was 7 in the early 1980's. I went to a very advanced high school that had Internet access in 1991 and some Unix systems. I loved it and was fascinated by all the hardware.

I started college in EE, I absolutely loved my digital logic class. I talked to one of the lab TA's in Circuits 2 and said this wasn't as interesting as digital logic. He told me to switch to computer engineering. I looked at the courses and there were only 5 classes different. I switched that week.

I've been designing computer chips the last 30 years.

> Maybe I Am Just a Software Guy

That's the TL ; DR version of the article.

The TL ; DR version of my post is "I like programming but I find hardware far more interesting."

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#22

Post by justinclift » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 12:03 PM UTC

rkagerer wrote: post #9

kennyloginz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is outdated advice. If you want to get paid, get a hammer.

And once you're actually using that hammer for real work, you'll learn how to use it to solve all sorts of problems, better than any school could teach you.

Here's a screw, here's a bit of wood. What tool do you use...? ;)

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#23

Post by nudgeee » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 12:03 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #20

pclmulqdq wrote: post #11

EE encompasses a lot of "engineering that takes hard math" at a professional and research level (similar to "hard CS," just different fields of math), so it is very hard to do as an undergrad, when your background in complex analysis and E&M is weak. Early classes on circuits in EE will usually take shortcuts using known circuit structures and simplified models. The abstraction underneath the field of analog circuits…

This is especially true because for doing most _hard_ EE work, you really need access to a fab, and so a lot of money. This is not really the case for most hard CS work.

By fab you mean lab, then agree.

Fabs are specific to the manufacturing of integrated circuits.

EE encompasses more than just manufacturing of ICs, for example research and applications in radio propagation and EM/wireless, signal integrity, antenna design, coexistence/desense, advanced power electronics, control systems, simulation/solvers, etc.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#24

Post by justinclift » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 12:04 PM UTC

crinkly wrote: post #6

kennyloginz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is outdated advice. If you want to get paid, get a hammer.

I disagree with this entirely as I rather like a desk job and hammers make my hands hurt after a bit :) If you want to get paid in software don't do something utterly commoditised and popular or you're just a fungible meat flavoured work unit. Get really damn good at something with some longevity in a stable niche.

*cough* COBOL ? :)

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#25

Post by pclmulqdq » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 12:08 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #20

pclmulqdq wrote: post #11

EE encompasses a lot of "engineering that takes hard math" at a professional and research level (similar to "hard CS," just different fields of math), so it is very hard to do as an undergrad, when your background in complex analysis and E&M is weak. Early classes on circuits in EE will usually take shortcuts using known circuit structures and simplified models. The abstraction underneath the field of analog circuits…

This is especially true because for doing most _hard_ EE work, you really need access to a fab, and so a lot of money. This is not really the case for most hard CS work.

Fabs are only part of this, and not universal in EE research at all. However, almost all serious EE research requires at least $100k of lab equipment of one kind or another.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#26

Post by crinkly » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 12:09 PM UTC

justinclift wrote: post #24

crinkly wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this entirely as I rather like a desk job and hammers make my hands hurt after a bit :) If you want to get paid in software don't do something utterly commoditised and popular or you're just a fungible meat flavoured work unit. Get really damn good at something with some longevity in a stable niche.

*cough* COBOL ? :)

These days C is enough pain :)

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#27

Post by carlmr » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 12:12 PM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #11

EE encompasses a lot of "engineering that takes hard math" at a professional and research level (similar to "hard CS," just different fields of math), so it is very hard to do as an undergrad, when your background in complex analysis and E&M is weak. Early classes on circuits in EE will usually take shortcuts using known circuit structures and simplified models. The abstraction underneath the field of analog circuits…

>Early classes on circuits in EE will usually take shortcuts using known circuit structures and simplified models.

Might just be me, but I found it all clicked when we started learning the fundamentals underneath these abstractions. For me it was harder in the first classes because it's about memorizing poorly understood concepts, my brain prefers logically deriving complex concepts as a learning method.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#28

Post by sevensor » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 12:17 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #20

pclmulqdq wrote: post #11

EE encompasses a lot of "engineering that takes hard math" at a professional and research level (similar to "hard CS," just different fields of math), so it is very hard to do as an undergrad, when your background in complex analysis and E&M is weak. Early classes on circuits in EE will usually take shortcuts using known circuit structures and simplified models. The abstraction underneath the field of analog circuits…

This is especially true because for doing most _hard_ EE work, you really need access to a fab, and so a lot of money. This is not really the case for most hard CS work.

“Things you can only do in a fab” is but a subset of “hard problems in EE.” How many people actually understand induction motors well enough to design a better one? Or how about antenna theory? The math makes most people’s eyeballs melt, and the space of possible antenna designs is utterly unfathomably huge. And then there’s acoustics, which is just like antenna theory except the math is sideways. I could go on. Control theory. Analog signal processing. Digital signal processing. Biomedical.

I say all this as a recovering semiconductor engineer: EE is a huge field. I can’t think of a subdiscipline where we’ve run out of new ideas to explore, and most of them don’t require bucketfuls of HF. The real problem is that the financial rewards are relatively small, the math is ferocious, and there are so few practitioners, let alone experts doing research.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#29

Post by amelius » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 12:17 PM UTC

nudgeee wrote: post #23

amelius wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is especially true because for doing most _hard_ EE work, you really need access to a fab, and so a lot of money. This is not really the case for most hard CS work.

By fab you mean lab, then agree. Fabs are specific to the manufacturing of integrated circuits. EE encompasses more than just manufacturing of ICs, for example research and applications in radio propagation and EM/wireless, signal integrity, antenna design, coexistence/desense, advanced power electronics, control systems, simulation/solvers, etc.

This is true, although for wireless applications you can follow the recommendations of the IC vendor and the remainder of the work is RF-engineering, not research. That's why I said fab, not lab. But yes, you are right to a great extent. The main point is that the hard EE work can be prohibitively expensive for individuals and smaller companies.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#30

Post by Liftyee » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 12:20 PM UTC

phendrenad2 wrote: post #13

More people should get into EE and see it all the way through. And, rather than getting a masters degree or PhD, go straight into industry. Why? Because just beyond what you learn in your BSEE degree lies one of the most fascinating topics ever: Signal integrity. I understand why a lot of people bail out of EE, and why a lot go to web dev specifically. EE relies so heavily on simple calculus that there's a distinct m…

I am currently on the EE path but the CSEE side is very tempting. Right now the "information/computer engineering" seems much more popular than "plain" EE. I wouldn't study pure software because it doesn't seem connected enough to the real world (...or I am coping for my weak algorithmic thinking skills).

Maybe one day I will actually understand signal integrity but so far my experience has been "check return paths, match impedances and pray to the EE gods".