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What is a typical day (week) like for you I am seeking a career in the electrical field #electrical-engineering?
I am seeking a career in the electrical field
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Dan Wolf
Retired Electrical/Software Engineer and part-time College Professor (BSEET and MS Engineering Management)
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Dan’s Answer
There are two levels of electrical work: Technician and Engineering. An electrical technician will typically have two years or less of training although a longer period of on-the-job training may apply to electrical trade positions. An electrical engineer will always have at least a four-year college degree. Technicians will typically repair, modify, and install electrical products. Engineers will typically design electrical products. In both cases, the day-to-day work will depend on the industry and company so it will be quite different. Your electrical exposure could be high voltage supply (110, 220, or 440 AC volt), low voltage for products (+5, +12, or +24 Volts), or more related to radio frequencies (RF).
A technician could work in a product manufacturing factory (electronic product like cell phones, radios, desktop PCs, or with process control (steel making or food processing) or with a power company delivering power to homes and businesses. The technician will work more with his/her hands and feet than an engineer so will likely spend more time on the factory floor and/or in the field/customer site.
As an electrical engineer, I designed the hardware for microprocessor-based products, wrote software, evaluated the safety and quality of product changes, and managed projects and other engineers. I worked for the steel, aluminum, freight locomotive, and passenger mass transit industries. All the software that I wrote was for controlling electrical products, sometimes high voltage, and sometimes low voltage.
When writing software, I primarily was in an office at a desk but often went to the lab and field for in-depth testing or product acceptance. I interfaced a lot with other engineers, both software and hardware, as well as project managers and customers. I wrote software (and it’s supporting documentation), and provided status reports and sales support.
As a hardware electrical engineer, I worked at a desk for the design work, moved to the lab for prototype testing and then to the field (customer site) for acceptance testing.
Most development work starts at an office desk for the design where you may have a small amount of electrical hardware (a couple of circuit boards) for early testing and development. You will move to a larger lab for more extensive testing with the final product (the entire freight brake control system) and eventually to the field/customer site for full acceptance testing (the brake control system is installed and tested on an actual freight locomotive).
Your own experience will depend on the industry and company and will likely differ from mine. Everyone’s day is different but similar. Your daily routine is also going to change (at least somewhat) when you change products or projects (within the same company) or change employment to a different company or industry.
It’s a lot of fun!
A technician could work in a product manufacturing factory (electronic product like cell phones, radios, desktop PCs, or with process control (steel making or food processing) or with a power company delivering power to homes and businesses. The technician will work more with his/her hands and feet than an engineer so will likely spend more time on the factory floor and/or in the field/customer site.
As an electrical engineer, I designed the hardware for microprocessor-based products, wrote software, evaluated the safety and quality of product changes, and managed projects and other engineers. I worked for the steel, aluminum, freight locomotive, and passenger mass transit industries. All the software that I wrote was for controlling electrical products, sometimes high voltage, and sometimes low voltage.
When writing software, I primarily was in an office at a desk but often went to the lab and field for in-depth testing or product acceptance. I interfaced a lot with other engineers, both software and hardware, as well as project managers and customers. I wrote software (and it’s supporting documentation), and provided status reports and sales support.
As a hardware electrical engineer, I worked at a desk for the design work, moved to the lab for prototype testing and then to the field (customer site) for acceptance testing.
Most development work starts at an office desk for the design where you may have a small amount of electrical hardware (a couple of circuit boards) for early testing and development. You will move to a larger lab for more extensive testing with the final product (the entire freight brake control system) and eventually to the field/customer site for full acceptance testing (the brake control system is installed and tested on an actual freight locomotive).
Your own experience will depend on the industry and company and will likely differ from mine. Everyone’s day is different but similar. Your daily routine is also going to change (at least somewhat) when you change products or projects (within the same company) or change employment to a different company or industry.
It’s a lot of fun!
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Iain’s Answer
Dan's answer is great and it provides a lot of insight into the levels of electrical work, and I happen to fall into a hybrid version of the latter. My degree from Texas A&M is in Computer Engineering which gave me exposure and experience with both electrical engineering and computer science concepts. This combination is also apparent in my current job at Dell Technologies where I work in the Systems Performance Analysis team. Much of my work is software based, but it begins with the hardware. I first need to set up a server to with it's necessary components before I install an OS and set up the files necessary to test its performance. My usual week involves optimizing the server's BIOS settings and then running performance benchmarks, so that Dell can show how their hardware stacks up the rest of the industry. However, it is also necessary for me to understand the hardware involved since it directly affects the results of these benchmarks. Different CPU and memory configurations can have a profound impact on the performance of a system when it comes to thermals for sure, but also the monetary cost of the server as a whole. This experience may differ greatly from other electrical engineers who spend their time either designing or fixing hardware components, and even that is a broad category. Either way there are plenty of fun paths to go down in the electrical engineering field.