Welcome to the second part of asking engineering
jobs, where we talk more about the jobs and
career opportunities for electrical engineers.
With that, let's get back into it.
Where are electrical engineering jobs in highest
demand?
I have zero clue.
No idea.
Moving on.
Who are the coolest electrical engineers out
there today?
After me?
It's a pretty short list.
I'm just kidding.
It's kind of interesting, because it does
seem like there was this period of time where
you look back and it seems like they were
the the cool, awesome engineers.
You've got Tesla, and a lot of people like
Edison for some reason, and then you have
Ohm, Volta, I mean, you've got all of these
people - Faraday - that came up with what
our entire careers are based on.
They created the foundation that we in college
are just barely getting into the 20th century
in terms of the technology by the time we
graduate.
ecause they've done all of this groundbreaking,
fantastic work but right now, I don't really
know any particular electrical engineers that
would be considered the rock stars of the
time.
Lady Ada.
And maybe I just need to... see, this is why
I need more time to think about these questions.
Because there is Lady Ada, she is awesome
and then SparkFun.
I mean, basically everybody at SparkFun - I
have the highest respect - those guys are
awesome.
Let's see, already mentioned Arduino.
Yeah, there's just a lot of really cool people
out there, but people that 50 years from now
we're going to be remember?
I have no clue.
Okay, moving on.
Can I have a Tesla?
I don't know.
Does that mean that...
Can *I* have a Tesla?
Or is the guys who put this slide together
asking if they can have a Tesla?
Yes, you can.
I think they're about $35,000.
Go for it.
What kind of liabilities Do you have as an
electrical engineer working on products?
Oh, that's an interesting question.
So, if you're going to be stamping a set of
plans, something like that, you're saying
you certify that this is going to work, you're
not gonna have any fires, you're not going
to have nuisance tripping, you're not going
to have any other issues like that.
And so as a professional licensed engineer,
if you stamp something, you can definitely
be sued.
If somebody else can come back and say, "You
screwed up, you were negligent.
This is your fault."
And you can be in a huge amount of trouble.
Now for non-licensed electrical engineers
that are just working on a product and they
put it out into the market, I made a Gizmo,
Gizmo 2.0, and I sell it that that's a little
bit more of a gray area, I believe it depends
on if you send it out there and it starts
killing people, you're probably going to be
criminally in trouble.
If it's specifically your fault.
If it just doesn't work, then you will probably
be financially in trouble.
Are you working for a company?
Then you probably have a buffer where the
company is going to be really angry with you
and you're going to get fired, but then they're
the ones that are going to get sued instead
of you.
So that's very much a legal question and when
I got my MBA, I did take a class on legal
system legal stuff.
So that makes me an expert in all things legal.
I basically should have gotten my attorney
juris doctorate, but I didn't.
Just kidding.
Yeah, I don't know.
That's something where we have lawyers who
have been doing this for decades.
And if you are creating a product where there
is some reason to have a concern.
Well, first of all, address that concern,
figure out why you're having that concern
and fix it.
And second of all, go to a lawyer and say,
"Hey, this should work.
We're doing everything we can, but just in
case, what are our liabilities?
What can we do to reduce those liabilities?"
And they'll probably take the route of, "Oh,
well stick 40 billion warnings on it, and
then you'll be totally fine."
Okay, next question.
Can an electrical engineering certification
work anywhere in the world?
So, this is a bit weird in terms of language.
Certification.
I don't know what that means.
If that's a degree, well, kind of anywhere.
Somebody can say well, you went to ITT and
I don't trust it.
And I know they're defunct, but before they
went out, there wasn't a whole lot of respect
for ITT graduates.
So even though you could have had a degree
from there, some people say, sorry, that's
not good enough.
But that's more of a personal opinion.
And the accreditation program makes it so
most colleges, when you get a degree, they're
accredited.
And most everybody will say, Oh, you got a
degree from there.
Great.
Now, if that certification means licensing
that professional engineer license, that PE
license, then no, no definitely does not go
anywhere in the world.
I'm licensed in California because I was stationed
out of California when I got my license.
And I didn't know what I was going to do when
I got out of the Navy.
And so it was just easy to do that.
But I could, now being in Idaho say, "I have
my license in California.
Can I also get my license here?"
And there's the steps you take.
And they say basically, "Yes, we recognize
your license there.
We recognize that and now that you've done
the application here, you can get your license
here."
Any paperwork - I can't stamp anything outside
of the state of California legally because
that is the only state I'm licensed in.
So you take that to another country, and it's
even less useful.
Moving on.
Architects are to civil engineers as ____
are to electrical engineers.
So architects are to civil engineers, as I
would want to say, Johnny Ives?? is to electrical
engineers.
The designers working here, we have a couple,
as I mentioned, there's a couple of designers
here at CircuitBread, in some of the products
that we've run by we have as the electrical
engineer said, "Hey, these are the features.
This is the system that we're developing with
the sensors and everything."
And then the designers say, "Hey, how about
you make it look pretty by doing these different
things."
And it should be designer first and then we
come back in and make those functions work.
So architects and designers, and they have
a way of looking at the world.
It's beautiful and functional, that as engineers,
we typically just are thinking utilitarian
and still functional.
But maybe not as easily functional as most
people would like it to be.
So moving on.
Can an electrical engineer become an electrician?
Yes, an electrician can become an electrical
engineer, just like a car mechanic can become
an electrician or an electrical engineer.
Anybody can become anything they want.
It's great.
An electrical engineer becoming an electrician
is probably going to be an easy transition.
Because you already understand the basic principles
of power and voltage and current and all those
sorts of things.
And it's going to be a lot more about learning
the rules and regulations.
So it's probably going to be more rote memorization.
Actually, a good friend of mine in college,
he was an electrician before he became an
electrical engineer.
And he had a lot of practical experience and
a lot of practical knowledge.
So either way, you're going to have a head
start if you're going one direction or the
other.
Moving on.
Can an electrical engineer become a software
engineer?
Kind of, yeah.
I mean, again, it goes back to you can do
whatever you want.
It just is going to require more time but
an electrical engineer depending on what Your
focuses, it might be that first step to becoming
a software engineer.
So if you do embedded systems, a lot of times
you're going to be writing firmware for your
microcontrollers.
And if you start writing that firmware and
you start getting more and more in depth as
you get more complicated firmware, start dealing
with RTOSes and start dealing with just all
sorts of crazy stuff, then that's going to
get you better prepared to become a software
engineer.
Now, if you don't do that, then there's not
going to be any benefit of going into software
engineering.
And basically, all the embedded system stuff
I do is pretty low level.
I don't do a lot of recursive programs.
I don't do anything that you wouldn't learn
about in your first or second semester of
a software class in college.
And so even for me, if I were to become a
software engineer, it would be, it'd be a
challenge, I would have a lot to learn.
But again, if you've been doing firmware for
years and you've gotten really good at it,
then that's going to give you a good step
up into becoming a software engineer.
What does Electrical Engineer 1 mean?
That I'm assuming is a job title and, as a
job title, it depends on the company.
I just got out of college, I need a job, okay?
We're not going to trust you to make very
important decisions.
You can be an electrical engineer one, once
you get better you can become two, three and
then four and then you can go into management
or are you going to become a senior engineer
in terms of becoming really awesome at what
you do?
Electrical engineer one typically, and very
much take this with a grain of salt, typically
means an entry level electrical engineering
position at a large enough firm that they
use this sort of generic designation.
Moving on.
What's an electrical engineer technician?
The technician means that you don't get as
much training in the theory and you get a
lot more training in the practicality.
So an electrical engineer is much more likely
to look at a circuit and know why it's acting,
the way it's working.
Whereas an engineering technician is much
more likely to be adept at putting together
that circuit and getting it to work.
And that, again, is a huge generalization.
But that is, typically, the difference between
an electrical engineer and electrical engineering
technician - the theoretical versus the practical.
Moving on.
How much of electrical engineering will become
automated?
That is a good question.
I don't think very much, frankly.
Computers are great at crunching numbers,
and so I think that as computers get better,
and we get more advanced AI and stuff like
that, we're going to have a lot more tools
at our disposal.
But until they can create a computer, or some
sort of artificial intelligence that can make
intuitive leaps, that can make jumps from
one point to another for problem solving,
then I think that electrical engineers were
pretty much okay, we're not going to be into
competition with robots.
I really don't anticipate this being a problem,
not for the near future anyway.
Give it 20-30 years.
We'll see what happens.
Moving on.
How might electrical engineering jobs change
in the future?
What's the next frontier?
Now, this is just my opinion, but I think
that electrical engineering jobs are just
going to become more specialized.
And there's also going to be more of a variety.
So it's going to be, not only something where
there's more different types of jobs, but
there's also jobs that are very, very specific.
Where you're going to have somebody who spends
30-40 years of their life, optimizing the
drive train in electric vehicles.
And then you'll have other people that all
they're going to be doing is focusing on the
containment system of fusion reactors, things
like that.
10 years ago, they weren't jobs at all probably.
I bet on ITER, you'd have some people that
were working on the containment systems, but
it's one of those things where ideally in
terms of the robotics idea is that anybody
that is going to be replaced by a robot, they
can then go get a job and they can become
the technician that is fixing that robot or
they can become the engineer that's designing
the next iteration of that robot.
And so that's where hopefully, we're going
to get more electrical engineering jobs and
make it so people are doing less tedious work,
and doing much more interesting and fulfilling
work.
But I don't know exactly how it's going to
turn out.
Maybe people don't want to design robots.
I think they're weird, but they're out there.
We'll see what happens and see exactly where
it goes.
Moving on.
What would be the coolest project / product
for you to work on?
I like embedded systems, microcontrollers,
low level electronics.
I think that's just awesome.
Something about having the tangible product
in your hand and being able to see all those
parts and I find soldering to be very therapeutic.
It's something where you can't do it with
shaky hands.
I think for me, the coolest project would
be something that combines different things
that I enjoy into my electronics.
And we've actually talked about this in the
past, and we've worked on it quite a bit,
a small product for people to go out backpacking.
And we're in Idaho, we're based out of Boise,
and there's some really cool mountains around
here.
We love to go hiking, we love to go camping,
we love to go backpacking, all of these different
things.
So if I could work on a product that combines
my passion for electronics, and my enjoyment
of being outside and being able to wander
around in the mountains, that would be the
coolest project for me to work on it.
So that's all the questions that I have.
I hope that this was helpful and informative
for anybody that's considering electrical
engineering as a job and the different possibilities
that there are out there.
Unfortunately, again, there are just so many
different opportunities and so many things
out there, that it's hard to describe it,
it's hard to boil it down into something that's
only a couple minute long dialogue here.
So honestly, I said, unfortunately, but that's
great, because there's so many opportunities
for people out there and so many things that
you want to do.
Because if you have that passion, and you
have that commitment, you're going to be able
to do exactly what you.
And you're going to have a fantastic and awesome
career doing amazing things in the electrical
engineering field.
So if you have any more questions or have
any comments please leave them in the comments
below here on YouTube or on our website CircuitBread.com
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