Wall Street is crashing, credit is shrinking, the economy is sinking, and people everywhere are worried about keeping their jobs. On the other hand, electronic designers with unique and in-demand skills are enjoying the luxury of feeling reasonably secure about their current employment status. Many are even planning for a better and brighter future. During these difficult times, that’s a feeling all designers would like to experience.
While nobody knows what the future may bring, all engineers can boost their employability by focusing on in-demand skills in areas that tend to be overlooked. “This is the time to get your skill set ready and become well-rounded,” says Eric Hazen, director of the Electronics Design Facility at Boston University. “Having multiple skills—an ability to be competent in several different areas—is always going to be viewed as a career attribute.”
But which specific skills are likely to enhance a designer’s skill set and provide employment insurance in a difficult market? Much depends on an individual’s current job focus, interests, aptitude, and willingness to investigate new areas. But having any of the following 10 design skills wouldn’t be a bad hedge against future insecurity.
Skill #1: Analog Design
The world may be going digital, but that doesn’t mean analog technology is about to disappear. In fact, analog is still widely used in markets ranging from automotive technologies to communications systems to consumer appliances. Analog circuits tend to be much larger than digital circuits, making them generally harder to design. This means that employers that focus on analog technology often continue searching for bright, engaged, and talented designers even when digital-oriented jobs are tough to find.
With schools grinding out thousands of digitally savvy grads every year, and veteran analog designers heading into retirement, analog design is rapidly becoming something of a lost art, Hazen says. “Within hardware, digital design is emphasized since it is more glamorous and has more job openings,” he notes.
While analog design is far from a cutting-edge talent, it’s a useful skill that can help keep designers gainfully employed while their digitally focused colleagues are heading for the unemployment office.
Skill #2: Radiation Hardening
This relatively obscure discipline is receiving greater attention as the government and military increasingly demand circuits that can withstand cosmic rays, solar radiation, atomic blast radiation, and related perils, both in space and on earth.
“More commercial vendors are starting to care about radiation effects as well,” says William Timothy Holman, an electrical engineering research associate professor at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University and the Vanderbilt Radiation Effects Program. That’s because as circuits continue to shrink, it becomes easier for ordinary background radiation to introduce errors into digital circuits or even damage chips.
“We’re finding that graduates from our program are in greater and greater demand,” Holman says.
Skill #3: Programming
Why would a hardware design engineer need to acquire programming skills? Because it’s becoming increasingly necessary. Hazen observes that “almost everything has a software component now. It’s either designed to be attached to or read-out by a computer.”
Even basic programming ability can be a big career booster, Hazen says. “If the engineer has no facility with software, then he or she has to bring in someone else to write even simple software to test out the hardware that they’ve designed,” he notes. This represents a potential added expense for the employer.
Exactly which programming skills should a design engineer attempt to acquire? Hazen suggests that designers begin by acquiring some general knowledge in C or C++ and then branch out into software tools that are relevant to their current work.
Knowledge of mainstream operating systems can also be useful for any designer working with computer-related technologies, such as PC peripherals, servers, and network devices, says Rich Graber, senior vice president of engineering at NEI, a network systems vendor. “I would definitely recommend that hardware guys take some Linux courses,” he says. “Understanding how Windows works is helpful, too.”
Skill #4: RF
Radios are popping up everywhere, even inside devices that usually aren’t associated with the technology, such as picture frames and vending machines. The Wi-Fi explosion, coupled with Bluetooth, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and other radio-enabled technologies, is opening more doors for engineers with RF knowledge.
A good understanding of the fundamentals of RF circuit design, particularly in cellular technologies, such as GSM and CDMA, and wireless systems, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and WiMAX, is becoming increasingly important for designers working in a variety of different fields. “Engineers in multiple business and consumer areas, not just telecommunications and networking, are encountering RF issues,” Hazen says. “RF design is a skill that’s likely to continue growing in importance.”