How to Become an Electronic Design Engineer in 2019

The demand for engineers at all levels is booming at the moment and electronic design is no different. As an electronic design engineer, you’ll be asked to work in a wide variety of sectors. Your job as an electronics designer will consist of developing, testing, and designing components, systems, equipment or devices that are using electricity as their main source of power. You’ll also be working at every step of the design and development process, all the way up to manufacturing. Let’s take a look at some of the qualifications needed to become an electronic design engineer in 2019.

What Qualifications are Needed?

The average electronics engineer will have a degree in electronic or electrical engineering. Other relevant entry subjects include communications engineering, aeronautical engineering, mathematics, applied physics, computer science engineering and software engineering, just to name a few. If you want to become a chartered or incorporated engineer, it would also be wise that your degree is accredited by a recognised professional body, like the IET for instance.

People with an HND, or any relevant NVQ Level three qualification, could apply for an engineering technician position. You can also do so if you complete an apprenticeship. However, this also means that you’ll be working at a lower position, and you’ll need to acquire further qualifications to work as an engineer. You can also start getting more experience by picking up a circuit designer software and start learning the basics of circuit engineering on your own. But make sure that you pick one that is user-friendly with a unified design environment that will make using the different tools easier and a large CAD library to choose from.

The Skills Needed to Become an Electronics Design Engineer

If you want to become a successful electronics design engineer, you have to make sure that you have the proper set of skills as well. First of all, you’ll need to have strong problem solving and analytical skills if you want to be able to quickly identify potential problems with circuits and how to fix them. Electronic design engineers should also have some level of manual skill, be innovative, creative and have a certain attention to detail. They’ll also need to have some leadership skills, be able to work in multidisciplinary teams in conjunction with other engineers and professionals, and have organisational and project management skills.

Work Experience

While work experience isn’t essential, having some relevant work experience could also help you land a position as an electronic design engineer. For example, experience in a relevant placement could give you some much-needed hands-on experience and will definitely be a plus. You could also decide to go for a sandwich placement as you study for becoming a chartered engineer.

Conclusion

Electronic design engineering is a very promising field with tons of possibilities. If you feel like this could be the career path for you, make sure that you learn more about the profession and everything it has to offer.

~ By Emily Roberts