Also called: Electronics Design Engineer, Hardware Engineer
Designs electronic equipment like sensors, communications gear, medical monitors and audio products.
You design a circuit board for a heart-rate sensor, picking every chip and resistor. When the prototype arrives you solder on test wires, hook it to an oscilloscope and see a noisy signal, so you hunt down the noise source one component at a time.
BLS May 2024 median $127,590; percentiles approximate.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Bachelor's in electrical or electronics engineering; many earn a master's.
Ways in: 4-year college. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Electrical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering.
Growing faster than average (about 7% over 10 years). BLS 2024-34 projection for electrical and electronics engineers.
Medium risk for 10 years. AI writes firmware, suggests circuits and runs checks, cutting some junior design work; prototyping, debugging boards and product decisions stay human.
Classes: AP Physics, AP Computer Science, Electronics class, AP Calculus.
Official data: O*NET occupation 17-2072.
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