Re: careers in embedded engineering

Mike Noone wrote:

Hi - I'm a third year EE at UIUC. I've been involved in many personal and class projects involving embedded electronics. Most of my work has been with Atmel microcontrollers - both AVRs and ARMs. I have found this work to be much more interesting than most of the other EE material that I study (power systems, DSP, semiconductors, etc.)

How is the job field in embedded engineering? Do embedded jobs pay as well as other EE jobs? Also, what part of embedded work would an EE do? In my projects I do everything - I first figure out what is needed, then draw out a schematic for that purpose, then lay out the board, then have the board printed, assemble the board, then program it. But I expect in a real world environment I would not be involved in every step like this.

Lastly, are there any classes that would be very helpful for a career in embedded engineering? Next year I have space for a number of technical electives (essentially, any engineering class), so I'm looking to gain as much useful knowledge as possible.

Thanks,

-Mike Noone

<rant>

If it's not too late -- get a position as an intern for this summer! Then do your best to do something real while you're there so you can get it on your resume! If you're lucky you'll be so useful that they'll hire you out of school.

If you can't or won't go the intern route, start doing hobby stuff. Going into an interview with stuff that you built is good proof that you can do real things. If you have something cool enough, you may even sidetrack the interview from all the hard technical questions they were going to ask, into a discussion of the cool thing you've built.

</rant>
<rant>

I don't know about any one else, but it kinda tweaks me out to see people talking about "embedded design" like it was a career. "Embedded" is something that has been done to a processor, it's not a career choice. Don't go wandering around with a processor in your hand looking for a problem to embed it in -- go looking for problems you can solve, with or without an embedded processor.

</rant>

If you can pick out a consistent thread in what you're interested in now, learn as much as you can in it. Want to be useful for medium-small companies? Make sure that you can build _all_ of an embedded controller, from the power supply, through the microprocessor, to the amplifiers -- throw in the signal conditioning for the sensors, as well.

Whatever else you do, make sure that when you come out you can not only design stuff, but also understand a bit about business processes, be able to write a cognizant document (your posts on the various groups indicate you'll do OK there), and know stuff outside of just EE.

That last -- know stuff outside of EE -- may be one of the most important. As I ranted, you don't embed processors for the sake of embedding them. You embed processors for the sake of solving a problem, and that problem is _not_ just that someone wants a processor! They want bank transactions made, or they want bread cooked, or they want toilets flushed, or they want engines managed -- all of these things require knowledge outside of pushing electrons around, and the more you can encompass that knowledge (and quickly) the better you'll be at solving the underlying problems.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

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.