[Engineering Feature]
The Top 50 Employers In Electronic Design
Whether you're validating your career choice or contemplating a move, we think you'll find this information valuable.
Careers in the electronics industry often mix opportunities and pitfalls. The opportunities are endless, perhaps even including the chance to create and lead a world-class technology organization. But the cyclical nature of the industry creates many pitfalls, including being laid off from your favorite job and not being able to find another like it.
One way to avoid the pitfalls and prepare for the opportunities is to work for a company that’s recognized as a top employer. Thus, we present our second annual list ranking the top 50 employers overall (pulled from a list of the top 98 companies; see “The Methodology Behind Our Choices” at www.electronicdesign.com, Drill Deeper 19019) (Table 1). We also compiled a list of all the employers from the electronics OEM sector that made it into the top 98 (Table 2).
Last year’s leader, Apple Inc., prevailed again. After that, the list bears little resemblance our 2007 tally. Some companies moved up the list dramatically, while others dropped down. Yet all 50 companies are standouts in the industry and worth a look if you want to validate your own position or consider new possibilities. In fact, if you know of any engineering students who are about to enter the workforce, you may want to pass this article along.
All of the companies on this list are public companies. That’s because we relied on financial data for our calculations. Public companies make all of their financial information available via annual reports and other sources, whereas private companies usually don’t.
We also focused on public companies since it’s often hard to know what you’re getting into when you hook your career wagon to a private company, whether it’s an established firm or a hot startup. Furthermore, we omitted other possible employers like universities and government agencies, since their non-profit nature excludes them from many of our criteria. Still, the top 10 companies are all familiar names that offer plenty of opportunities.
APPLE INC. The iPod. The iPhone. The iMac. Our top employer is i-everywhere (Fig. 1). Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Apple designs, manufactures, and sells personal computers, portable digital music players, and mobile communication devices, as well as related software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions worldwide.
Its success is indisputable, with $7.51 billion in revenue for the second quarter of 2008. Apple also posted a net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion for the quarter, or $1.16 per diluted share. It shipped 2,289,000 Macintosh computers and sold 10,644,000 iPods as well. And don’t forget the 1,703,000 iPhones it moved, too.
Apple hires seasoned pros as well as college or grad school graduates in all of its departments, including Mac hardware engineering, software engineering, applications, and even iPod engineering. According to the company, you’ll find a career there both challenging and inspiring. And why not, with charismatic CEO Steve Jobs at the helm? You can start your job search at www.apple.com/jobs/us/index.html.
EMC CORP. By bringing its systems, software, services, and solutions together, EMC helps its customers design, build, and manage intelligent, flexible, and secure information infrastructures. Its broad line of tiered storage platforms and technologies provides a comprehensive range of performance, scalability, functionality, and connectivity options. Also, its robust line of information infrastructure software addresses archiving, backup and recovery, business continuity and availability, collaboration, content management, data mobility and migration, resource management, and virtualization.
EMC ranks among the 10 most valuable technology companies, and it needs a diverse, driven team of talented employees. The job search for designers begins at www.emc.com/about/jobs/index.htm, with opportunities for students and recent grads as well. EMC’s world headquarters is in Hopkinton, Mass.
JUNIPER NETWORKS INC. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Juniper Networks designs, develops, and sells network infrastructure products and services, with an emphasis on information routing and data security. These products accelerate the deployment of services and applications over a single IP-based (Internet Protocol) network. Juniper operates in three segments: infrastructure, service layer technologies (SLTs), and service.
Job opportunities can be found at www.juniper.net/jobs/index.html. Juniper was also among the top five movers on our list, vaulting from 65th place last year to number three this year, thanks to the hot telecommunications market as consumers demand faster and more powerful technologies. You can read more about how Juniper achieved this improvement in “Three Companies Make 2007 A Real Leap Year” at Drill Deeper 19020.
RockwellCollins as #4? Management might like to think so, but the overworked, underpaid, low morale workforce won't think so, nor will the hordes of laid off employees, most of whom were older employees who suddenly were told that their job performance didn't meet "expectations" as they were marched out the door.
Anonymous -March 31, 2009
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