Categories
Engineering Jobs

Just Colorado Jobs

Dr. Dave from Goz7.com was nice enough to drop me a note recently. He is also in the field of analog electronics, but much more experienced and has written some really solid technical articles (such as this recent one about low noise discrete amplifiers).

He also mentioned that a friend of his (Bruce Gammill, no relation) was the chairman of a group dedicated to promoting Colorado’s tech region. While I’m not here to say whether the area is the next silicon valley or anything, I do appreciate the fact that it is another resource available for electrical engineers. Specifically, the “beta” section of the site shows a wonderful map of all the companies that are located on the 40 mile corridor from Denver to Fort Collins.

The reason I even mention this at all is that my previous post about where the technical areas are in the US completely glossed over the state of Colorado. While I blame my primitive search capabilities and the fact that the informal survey was based only one who is hiring now, I think it’s still important to point out where there are potential jobs for electrical engineers (and others!). Thankfully readers both here and on the ECE thread of reddit where I sometimes plug my posts were sure to point this fact out to me.

Does anyone know of other “chamber of commerce” type organizations that promote other technical areas in the US or even abroad? Having information about relevant companies in the same location can be a powerful tool for any job search. Using targeted company searches and good job hunting/interviewing techniques, the time searching for a job can be cut down considerably. Looking forward to seeing everyone’s tips!

Categories
Analog Electronics Work

Where Are Technical Areas in the US?

I was recently talking to my girlfriend about if we ever moved and needed to find jobs, where the most likely place would be to find work as an electrical engineer. It was interesting talking out cities that may or may not sync up with places she could find a job. Now, I don’t have much interest in leaving my current job, and while I hope to work on my own some day, I’m still quite dependent on employers for my livelihood.  So I did the fast/easy thing and went to Indeed.com and checked available positions under “electrical engineer”. Simple enough. So where are the technical jobs these days? (obviously this data is meant to change over time)

A map I made over at MapBuilder.net

    1. San Diego, CA (1059)
    2. Houston, TX (970)
    3. San Jose, CA (723)
    4. New York, NY (670)
    5. Santa Clara, CA (571)
    6. Phoenix, AZ (564)
    7. Washington, DC (543)
    8. Austin, TX (539)
    9. Sunnyvale, CA (529)
    10. Chicago, IL (472)
    11. Dallas, TX (471)
    12. Fort Meade, MD (424)
    13. Atlanta, GA (384)
    14. Los Angeles, CA (377)

The number in the parentheses are the number of positions listed online. It’s fair to assume some significant number of those are repeats (Indeed.com is a scraper, not some manual entry site), but we can assume that all the cities listed have a proportionate number of repeat listings. It’s also interesting– but not surprising–to note that certain areas are dense enough with jobs and location (i.e. silicon valley) that three of those cities (3, 5, 9) only show up as one tag.

Now, this isn’t to say these are the best jobs or the easiest to fill nor does it even point out how varied the positions can be! For example, an embedded developer and an analog system engineer might all be under the title “electrical engineer“. If you have experience working on electronics on an oil rig you’re much more likely to get a job in Houston than Fort Meade, regardless of how many jobs are available in either location. But these numbers do  point out where there is a considerable enough chunk of industry to have this many job listings.

So I ask you to respond in the shiny new comments section: are these really the only areas employers are hiring these days? Is there a significant long tail that I’m not seeing on Indeed? (i.e. 30 more cities with 250 listings each?) Are there any obviously booming spots that are left off the map? What about outside the good ol’ U S of A? I know there are a couple of readers, writers and witty commenters from outside my home country. Looking forward to your responses!