In this video, we're talking about what electrical engineers.
Do
and we're starting right now.
1% Nation I'm Jake Voorhees.
Welcome back to the channel and episode one Oh two of the 1% engineer show where
we empower young engineers to rise to the top 1% of their career.
So if you want to be the best engineer, you can be,
make sure you subscribe electrical engineers, design developed, test research,
and may supervise the manufacturing and or installation of electrical equipment
and components or systems for commercial, industrial military,
or scientific use. Like most engineering fields,
electrical engineering is hugely broad and you could work in multiple different
industries or sectors.
This includes from electrical power generation and distribution to cars and
smartphones,
electrical engineers are an integral part of thousands of companies. Later.
We'll discuss the eight subgroups of types of electrical engineering that you
may work on. But for now, I want you to understand the big three,
which is electricity,
electronics and electricity and magnetism and electrical engineer is a
professional who applies the physics and mathematics of electricity of these
three electricity electronics and electromagnetism to design and
develop new electronic equipment and systems to solve problems and to test
equipment.
That's what we're here as engineers guys to solve problems and develop solutions
for those problems in the world.
The emergence of the modern age is noted by the introduction of electricity,
to homes, businesses,
and industries of which all of this has technologically made possible by
electrical engineers. But this field hasn't been around that long. Historically,
we see the vacuum tube as the first aspect of electrical engineering.
This was the beginning of it.
All other early electrical engineers may work on things like the electronic
Telegraph or the telephone or basic aspects of power generation in general.
Today,
modern electrical engineers work in very exciting fields and may work on things
like robotics or drones or solar power, radar,
or other navigation systems connected,
personal tech like smartwatches and body implants.
They may work on holographic displays, space, exploration, wireless power,
solar, electricity, you name it,
anything that uses technology today and has a physical counterpart,
oftentimes as accompanied by the work of an electrical engineer,
what is your dream job, your dream role,
which may be possible to do as an electrical engineer comment below now,
you know, the definition, and you've heard a little bit of history,
but what are some of the tasks and the duties that you may perform as an
electrical engineer and E when you begin any engineering career,
you begin with the fundamentals of that industry.
And these also aligned specifically for the sector where you got your first job
in any of these sectors or any of these industries,
an electrical engineer may find themselves doing any of the following in a role.
They may prepare technical drawings,
specifications of electrical systems or topographical maps to ensure the
installation and operations conform to standards and customer requirements ease,
maybe communicating with other engineers on their projects.
And this could include communicating with customers or other individuals to
discuss existing or potential engineering projects or products ease,
may design implement, maintain, or improve electrical instruments,
equipment facilities, components, products,
or systems for commercial industrial, or domestic purposes.
They could conduct field surveys or study maps, graphs, diagrams,
or other data to identify and correct power system problems.
They may direct or coordinate manufacturing, construction, installation,
maintenance, support, documentation, or testing, activities codes,
or customer requirements.
And finally electrical engineers may be compiling data and write reports
regarding existing or potential electrical engineering studies or projects.
Now that you understand the task or the duties that may be a part of your
electrical engineering role, let's get into it. Eight.
That's going to do the eight sub within electrical engineering.
This is not uncommon in engineering guys, civil engineering, which I am,
has five core fields. And I think within mechanical engineering,
when I did that video,
there were as many as 12 different industries where you could work as a
mechanical engineer because engineers touch everything that is on this
planet. We are a part of everything.
And so the aspects of what you could work are just entirely broad.
So let's kick it right off with subgroup number one, which is power,
power engineering deals with the general transmission and distribution of
electricity, as well as the design of other related devices within power.
These include transformers, electric generators, electric motors,
high voltage engineering, and power electronics. In many regions of the world,
governments maintain an electrical network called a power grid that connects a
variety of generators together with users of their energy and lots of engineers
work within this power grid. I'm sure you guys have heard lots about it.
So group number two,
control control engineering focuses on the modeling of a diverse range of
dynamic systems and the design of controllers that will cause these systems to
behave in the desired manner to implement such controllers.
Electrical engineers may use electronic circuits, digital signal processors,
and programmable logic controllers or PLCs control engineering has a
wide range of applications from the flight and propulsion systems of commercial
airliners to the cruise control present in many modern automobiles.
It also plays an important role in industrial automation practices,
subgroup number three, electronics,
electronic engineering involves the design and testing of electronic circuits
that use the properties of components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors,
diodes, and transistors to achieve a particular functionality. The tune circuit,
for example,
is what allows the user of a radio to filter out all but a signal station.
And this is just one example of how circuits work sub group number four,
micro and nano electronics,
micro electronics engineering deals with the design and microfabrication of very
small electronic circuit components for the use of an integrated circuit or
sometimes for other use of their own general electronic components.
The most common electronic component is a semiconductor transistor,
although all main electronic components,
such as resistors and capacitors can be created at a microscopic level.
Nano electronics is the further scaling down of micro electronics.
And this field, this gets down to the nanometer.
Your level modern devices are already in the nano meter gene with below 100
nanometre processing. Having been the standard since around 2002.
The last time I checked for CPU's, how small the transistors are.
It's down to single digit nanometer in size subgroup.
Number five is signals signal processing deals with the analysis and
manipulation of signals for analog signals processing may involve the
amplification and filtering of audio signals for audio equipment or the
modulation or demodulation of signals for telecommunications.
For digital signals,
signal processing may involve the compression error detection and error
correction of digitally sampled signals. So number six,
telecommunications telecommunications engineering focuses on the transmission of
information across a telecommunication channel.
This could be through a co-ax cable optical fiber, or just free space.
For example, radio waves and radar can go out into the open air.
We send signals out into outer space.
It's totally open air transmissions across pre space require information to be
encoded in a carrier signal to shift the information to a carrier frequency
suitable for transmission.
This is known as modulation engineers are responsible for this technology
popular and along modulation technique include amplitude modulation and
frequency modulation guys. This is where am and FM radio come from.
And as you can see,
frequency modulation is much more powerful than amplitude modulation because FM
radio waves are stronger and can travel further than am.
The choice of modulation affects the cost and performance of a system.
And these two factors must be balanced carefully by the engine subgroup,
number seven,
instrumentation instrumentation engineering deals with the design of devices to
measure physical quantities, such as pressure flow and temperature.
The design of such instruments requires a good understanding of physics that
often extends beyond electromagnetic theory. For example,
flight instruments of measure variables such as wind speed and altitude to
enable pilots,
the control of aircraft analytically pilots barely even fly their own planes
anymore. Guys,
other applications could be measuring the temperature between two points,
the friction between two points,
anything that requires instrumentation is something that an electrical engineer
has established. So number eight is computers.
Computer engineering is its own field entirely. However,
computer intellectual engineering are so similar that I've had multiple friends
from multiple universities,
double major in electrical and computer engineering with only taking one
additional class or two additional classes,
not even a full extra semester because the crossover is so thorough.
So we'll talk about this.
When we get into the professional engineering exam for electrical engineers
later in this video,
but the two fields are so similar and that's why computer engineering
actually is a sub field within engineering and vice versa.
Computer engineering deals with the design of computers and computer systems.
This may involve the design of new hardware,
the design of PDA and supercomputers for the use of computers to control an
industrial plant. Computer engineers may also work on a system software.
However, the design of complex software system is awful.
The domain of software engineering programmers, computer science,
which is usually considered a separate discipline desktop computers represent a
tiny fraction of the devices.
A computer engineer may work with with as computer like architectures,
which may be found in a wide range of devices today. Okay.
Now that you understand the subgroups within electrical engineering and what you
might be working on, what you might be doing in the job,
let's actually talk about the work environment.
What is it like to be an electrical engineer,
electrical engineers work in a lot of different areas, labs, offices, mines,
power plants,
there needed to design plan and supervise multiple projects.
Onsite work is equally as important,
but it won't be your only work environment in this sector.
Areas such as defense need adaptable workers who can work in various
environments. If you're new and young in this industry, it's an advantage.
We need creative thinkers who can look at a problem within these different
environments and come up with creative solutions.
A lot of electrical engineer have an opportunity to travel. And again,
this may be between your office and different project plants or research
locations or mines or visiting client partnerships, whatever it may be.
But I traveled as a civil engineer, mechanical engineers,
travel electrical engineers do too.
Oftentimes you're going to be in an office early on.
You're going to be working inside of a software ecosystem.
You may be using some sort of design software like CAD.
You may be working inside of a coding environment as well.
A lot out of electrical engineers need to know a decent bit of coding.
And depending on the role that you have,
depending on the sector or the type of company that you work for,
there's going to be a balance of, of software ecosystem of coding,
environments of testing,
and actually going out on site or getting in the lab and actually looking at
what you do in the design software or what you did in your coding environment.
You may be doing one of these three types of workflows or be working with a team
that's working with many of these in my experience.
Most early engineers work within software ecosystems pretty heavily.
If you're someone who wants to be on site or out on the field all the time,
there are electrical engineering roles where you could achieve that.
So now that you understand some of the basics of what engineers do day by day,
then the work environments they may be in,
let's talk about the channels for your career.
And this also heavily links into the professional engineering exam.
Any engineer early on needs to decide if they're going to be a technical expert
within their field, or if they want to be a company,
project manager and go for leaders, both are great choices.
It's more like choosing the one that's right for you.
If you're better at communication, if you like working in teams,
if you don't mind picking up the phone and calling a client and things like
this, then being a project manager may be a better fit for you.
And so a few years into your career,
you may end up having one person that you were helping to coordinate an intern
might be under you, and then eventually three to five years.
And you may become an early project manager where you may have a few junior
engineers with you. Now,
technical are going to be the ones who really become true elite users of their
software environments. They become even better with their coding.
They may even be doing things outside of their work environment that makes them
better at this. A lot of technical experts get their master's degree,
where they traveled to technical conferences,
where they're constantly learning about how to be the best practitioner within
their industry lane that they possibly can.
And this is why I want to talk about the professional engineering exam quite a
bit,
because a lot of electrical engineers do not actually get their PE they don't
design things in the sense that a civil engineer or a mechanical engineer is
constantly creating a plan to design an actual part or plans to
design an actual bridge.
Electrical engineers are not always working on the creation of a new physical
product. So after doing a research study,
I found that few actually get their PE. Now,
if you want to be on course for management and in your career,
you'd rather be a more of a communicator and be a team lead.
Then getting that PE is very important because you have to stamp your plan,
your name, your credibility has to be on the documents that you give a,
a project. If there is design involved,
it's going to help you when you're going for promotions.
So if you're somebody who is an engineer who may be thinking about your MBA
instead of a technical master's, then getting your PE is pretty important.
There's only three types of PE exams for electrical engineers.
And one is actually the computer engineering exam. So really only two,
the first one is called electrical and computer focusing on computer
engineering. The second one is electronics controls and communications.
And the third one is electrical and computer specifically focusing on power.
So the body that provides the professional engineering exam believes that
there's more jobs and more need for a specific PE exam for power than
anything else. I think that's interesting.
I think you guys should note that as well,
now that you understand the work environment and the lanes of career progression
that you could have,
and the values pros and cons of getting your PE or having someone on your
team,
having their PE let's talk about what professional engineering design might look
like for electrical engineering.
How many engineers will be involved with the design of these products and
applications,
but electrical engineers are specifically working on a section of that product
that is for them,
the computer tablet or smartphone you purchase recently is a masterpiece of
electrical engineering design.
The way the circuit boards all connect and communicate to each other is a
perfect example of what ease can do. Robots are comprised of sensors, actuators,
micro compressors,
and sophisticated feedback control systems designed by electrical engineers,
space projects, deep space communication, robust control systems,
extra terrestrial GPS for navigation and positioning power generation and
storage networks, imaging systems,
and finally a sophisticated medical technology that you encounter in a modern
hospital, including CT MRI and pet imaging machines,
ECG, and blood pressure monitors are all based off of the work of electrical
engineers.
So I felt it was necessary to list off a couple of the applications that could
see happen.
If you end up working for a company that designs products for the electrical
engineering industry, I hope that video helped you guys.
What do electrical engineers do?
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