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How many of you guys on this forum have a career that lets you work with Electronics?

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EasternTIGERS

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Hi everyone, Im curious as to how many of you all have a career/job that has to do with anything Electronics? If you could tell me how long you have been in the industry and id love to know?

Thanks
 
I have worked in electronics all of my adult life. I began with Ham Radio in the early 60s. Today I still work in the electrical engineering field and I was 60 last February.

Ron
 
I have worked in the electronics industry all my working life, started on ground radar [RAF] in 1950, aged 17 years.
Operated my own electronics company for 25 years before I retired in 2005.
I was 77 last November.
 
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In undergraduate education, they thought us some basic theoretical knowledge. What they thought us was a basis to other superior knowledge, or could be further studied to be something practical.

What they thought me were Fourier transform, electromagnetic theory, probability theory, circuit theory, electric motors, microprocessors, power electronics, control theory, signal processing, telecommunication theory, digital electronics, solid state electronics, microwave techniques, etc... A lot of courses whose names were like "Bla-bla theory".

But what they didn't thought was;
How to use computer software to design and simulate a circuit
Use latest microcontroller systems (arm, atmel, etc) to design digital circuits (by the way we learned 8085...)
How to search & purchase electric/electronic parts in market
How to choose the correct IC package for the circuit to be designed
How to use a DSP card to process digital signal, and how to implement an algorithm and write C code to run on a DSP unit
How to implement and obtain a physical and concrete project from a control structure designed in s-domain
...

We know theoretical basics of most of the electronics topics, but we lack practical knowledge.
The result? I'm working as a computer programmer thanks to my personal studies on software engineering. I'm not doing my own job, I'm not happy at work, because as an electronics engineer I'm not too successful at programming. I am earning a lower salary compared to my co-workers. I'm trying to obtain the my missing practical experience and my senior co-worker is upset with this, because he expects me to dedicate myself to computer programming and forget about my electronics engineer past.
And today I decided to look for a new job. I don't know what future awaits me. I don't hope for better...
 
I started dabbling with electronics about 9 years old, and for Christmas I had a Philips Electronics kit - and had great fun building the projects in that. By the time I left school at 16 I had built a number of different 'real' projects, despite having almost no money - I used to go to a tip up on the local moor and remove components from old TV's and radios. When I left school I got an apprenticeship with a local TV shop - and I'm still there now.

I'm 21 years old - and have been for a long time! :p
 
I have worked in the electronics industry all my working life, started on ground radar [RAF] in 1950, aged 17 years.
Operated my own electronics company for 25 years before I retired in 2005.
I was 77 last November.

Hmm Eric was working with RADAR when I was born in 1950. :) I was the small unidentified blip on the screen in Brooklyn, NY.

My earliest learning memories were vacuum tubes then transistors and then integrated circuits. Most of the early school being vacuum tubes and transistors. There was no computer programming as there were no computers for everyday use. Hell, there weren't even calculators. I have memories of my father teaching me how to use a slide rule.

The thing here is that electronics as a way of life is a constantly changing field. You either remain on top of change or become useless to most employers. The last 25 years or so I have been focused on a single product. I know it and I know it well. I do try as time allows to learn new things and incorporate them into our test methods and procedures. I am fortunate in that I will be here till I decide I want to retire.

We have recently hired a few new young engineers. We discussed the applications and knew we wanted two things. I especially wanted someone good with writing code for data acquisition. Just means I wanted an EE who did a lot of programming in college. We wanted VB and C. I also wanted a good circuit design engineer who was trained in Orcad.

All we sought was the basics in individuals and the ability to learn and understand a very unusual and different product. The rest comes natural. The two we hired have worked out great. The idea here is nobody is going to know it all.

I really enjoy my work. I have had the opportunity to move into other areas like program managment but prefer my lab areas and what I have always done. The pay is the same and I am happy with what I do.

What is important is that someone enjoy their work and make themselves valuable to their employer. That or come up with an idea and move on that idea and become your own boss or company.

Just My Take
Ron
 
I've been an electronics engineer for 32 years. I've thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.
I'm still employed as such, but probably my job will be outsourced to China in the future.....
 
Became a ham right out of high school in 1962. BS EE 1966. PhD EE in 1974. Worked for General Instrument, Fairchild, Analog Devices, Performance Semiconductor, Hewlett Packard, Sarcos, and did University research for several years. Retired 4 years ago.
 
I had a great time during my 34 years electronics career. I started with vacuum tubes.
I retired at 55 years old and now I am 64. I invested wisely and multiplied my savings.
 
I've got about 3 years experience working as an electronics design engineer. Work history has been primarily at two small R&D firms that do government work. My degree is in electrical engineering. Most of what I do is schematic and board layout and a small amount of microcontroller programming. Most of my designs now are far too complicated for me to do anything but focus on the circuit design and layout and just make sure the programming guys have everything they need to make their code 'go'.

Love it, wouldn't do anything else. The fact I only need one of the two paychecks I get per month to live is a nice bonus. Saving a ton of cash right now.

If you get into it, I would recommend working at small startups. You will get exposed to much more of the engineering process much faster, and it'll make you a lot more valuable and a much better engineer. At a big company you might get stuck doing some miniscule job and never get the big picture. I tried a big company job and quit after 3 months, couldn't stand it. Landed a great one at a much smaller company (less than 50 people). Been here 8 months now and still loving it.
 
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I am 35 if thats what you are looking for. :)

I am more of a industrial and commercial technician than an engineer. I got my associates degree in industrial maintenance technologies about 15 years ago and completed 3.5 years of EE five years ago but never finished due to two bad semesters of health issues and no insurance to cover it so I lost my financing. I dont mind that I never finished now being that looking back the education I was paying for was a dismal representation of what it was supposed to stand for. As having worked around the applied engineering and service fields for some time I found the EE course to be nothing more than lots of fluff with little practical or useful real life aplication material.:(

Most of my electronics and electrical knowledge and knowledge of other things came from personal study related to hands on applications at one job or another during my working life.
Half the engineers of every field I have ever had the privilege of working with or working around I highly respect and admire for what they do and stand for. :)
The other half unfortunately represent a larger part of those who I was supposed to have received my EE education from. :(

I like inventing and creating things and often use my knowledge of electrical, electronics, mechanical and technical fabrication and engineering to build most almost anything I can imagine. Plus I am rather good at holding my own in a intellectual argument or debate on most practical subjects. :D
I also work on the family farm and drive semi truck at times. I also have owned and operated my own business four four years now which I enjoy immensely despite the more difficult times of the last year or so. I would probably keep working for myself but I was given a recent job offer that pays far too well for me to turn down so for a while I will be back in the regular work force again. :)
 
I'm Instrumentation Tech. But much deals with electronics side of this carrier since 1989. Almost 20 years.
 
I think you'll find that's over 20 years, it's now 2010. :D

Here's my career so far, if anyone's interested.

I did an apprenticeship in the electronics department at Hunting Engineering. The company then got bought by another company, Insys and at the end of my apprenticeship, it turned out there was no longer a vacancy for an electronics engineer so I did odd jobs around the company before finding a job as an electrical engineer. I was busy for about a year, then the work dried up, but the company kept me on, doing odd jobs and spending large periods of time doing nothing but posting on these forums and working on my own personal projects. The company then got bought again by Lockheed Martin, I then spent a year or so working on a boring project and my performance reviews were poor. Last summer the company was making many electrical engineers redundant and as I'd recently been offered a job elsewhere and I had a feeling they'd get rid of me anyway I took voluntary redundancy.

Unfortunately, the other job fell though, it turns out that they didn't need me after all, it was only a temporary contracting role so I accepted it. I was then unemployed for about six months before getting a job which was advertised as an electrical tester but turned out to be packing boxes. I told the manager that I thought it was supposed to be a testing role, not packing boxes and he told me I could work until the end of the week.

That was about a month ago and I've been looking since.

I've come to the conclusion that I don't want a really high paid job where I'm hassled and I have to stick to tight deadlines. I don't spend much money so there's no point in just earning loads of money I'm never going to spend anyway. I'd rather just get a fairly relaxed job which pays enough for me to get by on.

I don't see the point in studying for a degree, in electronics. The chances are I'll find half the work boring anyway so would either drop out or more likely do the bae minimum and get a mediocre grade. I also know full well that even if I got a decent grade, it'll be hard to find a good electronic job in the UK anyway.
 
I think you'll find that's over 20 years, it's now 2010. :D

Here's my career so far, if anyone's interested.

I did an apprenticeship in the electronics department at Hunting Engineering. The company then got bought by another company, Insys and at the end of my apprenticeship, it turned out there was no longer a vacancy for an electronics engineer so I did odd jobs around the company before finding a job as an electrical engineer. I was busy for about a year, then the work dried up, but the company kept me on, doing odd jobs and spending large periods of time doing nothing but posting on these forums and working on my own personal projects. The company then got bought again by Lockheed Martin, I then spent a year or so working on a boring project and my performance reviews were poor. Last summer the company was making many electrical engineers redundant and as I'd recently been offered a job elsewhere and I had a feeling they'd get rid of me anyway I took voluntary redundancy.

Unfortunately, the other job fell though, it turns out that they didn't need me after all, it was only a temporary contracting role so I accepted it. I was then unemployed for about six months before getting a job which was advertised as an electrical tester but turned out to be packing boxes. I told the manager that I thought it was supposed to be a testing role, not packing boxes and he told me I could work until the end of the week.

That was about a month ago and I've been looking since.

I've come to the conclusion that I don't want a really high paid job where I'm hassled and I have to stick to tight deadlines. I don't spend much money so there's no point in just earning loads of money I'm never going to spend anyway. I'd rather just get a fairly relaxed job which pays enough for me to get by on.

I don't see the point in studying for a degree, in electronics. The chances are I'll find half the work boring anyway so would either drop out or more likely do the bae minimum and get a mediocre grade. I also know full well that even if I got a decent grade, it'll be hard to find a good electronic job in the UK anyway.

Interesting events you describe, sounds similar to my friend but now he went to America Chicago to work on mecatronic design. Have you looked at MIT unitverist, they have the entire Electronic Engineering course online, the Tutors is probably the best Prof. Anant Agarwal. Im like you I dont go out and spend money apart from my food and cat food. How about house electrician im sure you would be suitable in this field not that Im picking a career for you sorry to sound rude
 
I have worked in the electronics industry all my working life, started on ground radar [RAF] in 1950, aged 17 years.
Operated my own electronics company for 25 years before I retired in 2005.
I was 77 last November.

You
look very young in your avatar, Electronics have come a long way since those days, digital and ic circuits
 
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