National
| Median wages (2008) |
$39.50 hourly, $82,160 annual |
| Employment (2006) |
153,000 employees |
| Projected growth (2006-2016) |
Slower than average (3% to 6%)
|
| Projected need (2006-2016) |
45,000 additional employees |
17-2071.00 - Electrical Engineers
Design, develop, test, or supervise the manufacturing and installation of electrical equipment, components, or systems for commercial, industrial, military, or scientific use.
Sample of reported job titles:
Electrical Engineer, Electrical Design Engineer, Project Engineer, Electrical Controls Engineer, Test Engineer, Hardware Design Engineer, Broadcast Engineer, Circuits Engineer, Electrical and Instrument Maintenance Supervisor (E and I Maintenance Supervisor), Electrical Project Engineer
Tasks
- Prepare and study technical drawings, specifications of electrical systems, and topographical maps to ensure that installation and operations conform to standards and customer requirements.
- Operate computer-assisted engineering and design software and equipment to perform engineering tasks.
- Confer with engineers, customers, and others to discuss existing or potential engineering projects and products.
- Direct and coordinate manufacturing, construction, installation, maintenance, support, documentation, and testing activities to ensure compliance with specifications, codes, and customer requirements.
- Design, implement, maintain, and improve electrical instruments, equipment, facilities, components, products, and systems for commercial, industrial, and domestic purposes.
- Prepare specifications for purchase of materials and equipment.
- Perform detailed calculations to compute and establish manufacturing, construction, and installation standards and specifications.
- Investigate customer or public complaints, determine nature and extent of problem, and recommend remedial measures.
- Oversee project production efforts to assure projects are completed satisfactorily, on time and within budget.
- Plan and implement research methodology and procedures to apply principles of electrical theory to engineering projects.
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Tools & Technology
Tools used in this occupation:
| Laboratory evaporators — Electron beam evaporators; Filament evaporators; Metal evaporation systems; Vacuum system/thermal evaporators |
| Semiconductor process systems — Spin-coaters; Wafer steppers; Wet chemical clean benches; Wire bonders |
| Signal generators — Programmable function generators; Synthesized continuous wave CW generators; Vector signal generators |
| Spectrometers — Auger electron spectrometers; Electrochemical CV dopant profilers; Photoluminescence spectrometers; X ray photoemission spectrometers |
| Tube furnaces — Doping tubes; Oxidation tubes; Vertical furnaces |
Technology used in this occupation:
| Analytical or scientific software — Finite element method FEM software; Synopsys PrimeTime; Tektronix EZ-TEST; The Mathworks MATLAB |
| Computer aided design CAD software — Autodesk AutoCAD software; Cadence Encounter Test; Mento Graphics software; OrCAD Capture |
| Development environment software — C; Microsoft Visual Basic; Programmed logic controller PLC code generation software; VHSIC hardware description language VHDL |
| Object or component oriented development software — C++; JHDL; Practical extraction and reporting language Perl; Python |
| Program testing software — Debugging software; Defect tracking software |
