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Electrical Engineers have a broad range of career opportunities, and their skills are in high demand across many industries.
The information provided below explains and provides examples of different roles/responsibilities and career pathways that Electrical Engineering students may take after receiving their degree.
Electrical Engineers can work in a variety of industries and sectors, including:
Power generation and distribution: Electrical engineers can work for power generation and distribution companies to design, develop and maintain electrical systems that generate and distribute power to homes, businesses, and industries.
Telecommunications: Electrical engineers can work for telecommunications companies, where they design and develop systems for transmitting data, voice, and video communications.
Manufacturing: Electrical engineers can work for manufacturing companies to design and develop electrical systems used in the production of various goods, including consumer electronics, medical devices, and industrial equipment.
Aerospace and defense industries: Electrical engineers can work for aerospace and defense companies to design and develop electronic systems used in aircraft, satellites, missiles, and other defense technologies.
Construction: Electrical engineers can work for construction companies to design and oversee the installation of electrical systems in buildings and infrastructure.
Research and development organizations: Electrical engineers can work for research and development organizations, such as government agencies or private research labs, where they can help develop new technologies or improve existing ones.
Consulting firms: Electrical engineers can work for consulting firms that provide technical expertise and services to clients across various industries.
The job responsibilities of electrical engineers can vary depending on their specific role, industry, and company.
Electrical engineering jobs involve designing, developing, testing, and supervising the manufacturing of electrical equipment, systems and components. This can include electric motors, radar and navigation systems, broadcast and communications systems, power generation equipment, or electrical systems for automobiles, aircraft and spacecraft
Some typical responsibilities that electrical engineers may have:
Design and develop electrical systems: Electrical engineers may be responsible for designing and developing electrical systems, from concept to implementation. This could include designing electrical circuits, selecting components, and overseeing the installation of systems.
Test and troubleshoot electrical systems: Electrical engineers may also be responsible for testing and troubleshooting electrical systems to identify and resolve issues. This may involve using specialized equipment to measure and analyze electrical performance.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams: Electrical engineers often work closely with other teams, such as mechanical engineers, software engineers, and project managers, to develop and implement new systems and technologies.
Stay up-to-date with emerging technologies: As technology continues to evolve, electrical engineers need to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and emerging technologies. This may involve attending industry conferences, reading research papers, and experimenting with new tools and techniques.
Document and communicate technical information: Electrical engineers must be able to document their work and communicate technical information to non-technical stakeholders. This could include writing technical reports, creating presentations, and providing training to other team members.
Ensure compliance with safety regulations: Electrical engineers must also ensure that their designs and systems comply with safety regulations and standards. This may involve working with regulatory agencies to obtain approvals and certifications.
Overall, Electrical Engineers play a critical role in designing, developing, and maintaining the electrical systems that power our modern world. Their job responsibilities are varied and often require a mix of technical skills, creativity, and collaboration.
Electrical Engineering is subdivided into a wide range of subfields including electronics, digital computers, power engineering, telecommunications, control systems, robotics, radio-frequency engineering, signal processing, instrumentation, and microelectronics.
Electronics engineering is a branch of electrical engineering that focuses on the design and development of products using electronic technology. Electronics engineers participate in the preliminary stages of any electronic product, develop plans, follow them to manufacture electronic products and systems, test and evaluate electrical products, coordinate with stakeholders, write usage recommendations, perform maintenance and repairs.
Power engineering is a subfield of electrical engineering that deals with the generation, transmission, distribution, and utilization of electric power, and the electrical apparatus connected to such systems. Power engineers use methods and tools that produce, store, channel and distribute power. They’re responsible for the maintenance, operation and repair of power equipment, including generators, turbines, boilers, electrical systems, compressors and pumps.
Telecommunications engineering is a subfield of electrical engineering that seeks to design and devise systems of communication at a distance. Telecommunication engineers are responsible for designing and overseeing the installation of telecommunications equipment and facilities, such as complex electronic switching systems, and other plain old telephone service facilities, optical fiber cabling, IP networks, and microwave transmission systems. They also install new hardware and software for telecommunication systems, test hardware and software to determine efficiency and compatibility with existing systems, evaluate system performance, provide high-speed data transmission services, monitor network traffic, security and capacity to identify issues that may impact service, ensure timely planning and implementation of various projects.
Controls/Robotics engineering is an engineering discipline that focuses on the modeling of a diverse range of dynamic systems (e.g. mechanical systems) and the design of controllers that will cause these systems to behave in the desired manner. The role of a controls engineer includes creating equipment and systems that help a machine run smoothly, repairing any malfunctions found within the machines, collaborating with design engineers to build better functioning machines and systems, using listening skills to apply updates according to feedback from operators. Controls engineers analyze plant processes, design and implement improvements, troubleshoot issues with hardware and processes, plan preventative maintenance, work with others to detect problems and implement solutions, maintain quality and safety standards.
Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing signals, such as sound, images, potential fields, seismic signals, altimetry processing, and scientific measurements. A signal processing engineer is an information technologies expert that analyzes and alters digital signals to make them more accurate and reliable. As a signal processing engineer, your responsibilities are to develop, manage and update digital signals, creating algorithms to process them more efficiently.
Power electronics is a branch of electrical engineering that focuses on processing, controlling, and converting electric power. It utilizes high voltages and currents to deliver power to electrical equipment and devices ranging from air conditioning systems in homes to industrial machinery. Power electronics plays a significant role in energy conversion, renewable energy systems, storage, electric and hybrid vehicles.
Microelectronics engineering is a specialized field of electrical engineering that deals with the study and understanding of the design and development of microchips. It deals only with components at the micrometer-scale or smaller.
The median annual wage for electrical engineers was $100,420 in May 2021.
The median annual wage for Electronics Engineers, except computer was $104,820 in May 2021.
(Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
What career pathways are available for Electrical Engineering graduates?
Electrical Engineers work in the Aviation and Aerospace sectors in a variety of roles
| Role and Responsibilities | Company or Organization with similar job offering(s) |
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Role: Digital Signal Processing Engineers Typical Job Responsibilities: A DSP Engineer researches novel solutions for large-scale RF sensing systems; design and test algorithms for on-orbit and ground-based sensor data processing; work in close collaboration with FPGA, RF/antenna, and software engineers to design and validate RF sensing systems; and perform on-orbit demonstrations and testing |
SpaceX Boeing Blue Origin |
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Role: Space Electrical Engineers Typical Job Responsibilities: A Space Electrical Engineer analyzes and translates requirements into system architecture, hardware and software designs and interface specifications; tests and validates to ensure system designs meet operational and functional requirements; monitors supplier performance to ensure system integration and compliance with requirements; supports fielded hardware and software over the entire product lifecycle; investigates emerging technologies to develop concepts for future product designs to meet projected requirements. |
Boeing |
Electrical Engineers work in the Defense sector in a variety of roles
| Role and Responsibilities | Company or Organization with similar job offering(s) |
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Role: Digital Design Engineers Typical Job Responsibilities: A Digital Design Engineer is responsible for the design, analysis, simulation, test, and integration of digital electronic modules for Missile applications; the engineer is experienced in all aspects of circuit card design including hardware designs with processors, FPGAs, memory, and industry interfaces. |
Raytheon Missiles & Defense Naval Shipyard Northrop Grumman |
Electrical Engineers work in the Utility sector in a variety of roles
| Role and Responsibilities | Company or Organization with similar job offering(s) |
|---|---|
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Role: Electrical Engineer I Typical Job Responsibilities: An Electrical Engineer applies basic engineering principles, practices, theories and methods and use of commonly applied engineering approaches and calculations; the Electrical Engineer uses judgement in the selection and application of engineering methods, the modification of standard models, designs, or procedures, and when correlating data and recognizing discrepancies in results; prepares cost estimates and specifications, performs engineering studies and designs, conducts office and field research. The electrical engineer plans and develops project budgets with appropriate project documentation; provides verification and field measurements of new equipment and system installations; acquires performance data from new and existing equipment or systems and validates against design parameters. |
Puget Sound Energy Tacoma Power City of Tacoma City of Seattle Port of Tacoma Port of Seattle |
Electrical Engineers work in the High-Tech sector in a variety of roles to improve the power efficiency of devices
| Role and Responsibilities | Company or Organization with similar job offering(s) |
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Role: Data Center Electrical Engineer (Power Architecture) Typical Job Responsibilities: A Data Center Electrical Engineer participates in conceptual design of electrical power distribution; read and interpret design documents by equipment manufacturers (e.g., switchgear, transformers, UPS, batteries); read and interpret design documents by engineering companies (e.g., one line diagrams, layouts, raceway drawings, grounding drawings, lighting drawings, interface drawings). |
Meta Amazon Microsoft |
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Role: Electrical Engineer (Power Architecture) Typical Job Responsibilities: An Electrical Engineer is responsible for the power circuit design, simulation, validation, and characterization of a highly complex consumer electronic device; evaluate and enable innovative solutions for cost, size, efficiency, safety, and reliability; generate design documentation, perform schematic capture and power delivery network simulation, both pre and post board layout, prototype bring-up and design validation; solve technical issues during new product development and in field escalations; characterize power consumption, battery runtime, battery charging/discharging curve at each build; and collect power measurements for weekly SW builds and drive every mA of power out of the system cross-functionally. |
Meta Amazon |
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Role: Electrical Systems Engineer Typical Job Responsibilities: An Electrical Systems Engineer conducts trades studies and supply knowledge to help down-select spacecraft electrical power system architectures appropriate for mission requirements; methodically estimate power consumption and current requirements (average, transient, in-rush, etc.) from all vehicle subsystems and electrical components; generate power consuming component models based on a combination of first principals, empirical information, and test data; design and analyze electrical systems for EMI/EMC compliance; and create and maintain system diagrams for power distribution, system grounding, and bonding. |
Blue Origin Boeing SpaceX |
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Role: Audio System Engineer Typical Job Responsibilities: An Audio System Engineer creates concepts to demonstrate next generation technologies and experiences coming through advanced development; they will also create concepts to explore use cases and user experiences; and work on innovative signal processing algorithms to improve sound quality of audio products. |
Bose Pioneer MartinLogan |
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