What do you do if you want to carve out a successful career as a creative electronic engineer?

Creativity (extrapolation) is rare. What makes us an expert is prediction based on pattern matching. This means we should have as much data as possible to enhance our ability to match patterns (interpolate) and make useful predictions (extrapolate). Expose yourself to a wide variety of data and information...including the odd, wrong, random and frivolous. People will view you as creative if you make a useful correlation they didn't see.

To forge a successful career as a creative electronic engineer, start with a solid education in electronic engineering or a related field. Continuously update your skills with workshops and online courses. Engage in personal projects to showcase your innovative problem-solving abilities. Gain practical experience through internships and entry-level jobs. Develop soft skills like communication and teamwork. Build a professional network by attending industry conferences and networking events. Consider postgraduate studies for specialized roles. Engage with the community through articles or videos to establish your expertise. Specialize in high-demand niches like AI in embedded systems or IoT.

To add to this, there will generally be at least 3 different types of skills: technical, soft, and critical. The 1st of which are initially most sought after find when initially looking (e.g. coding). But after a while, applying these skills becomes mechanical and without motivation, can lead to some monotonous work ability. The 2nd goes undervalued, but these are skills which are not directly shown on the resume, but rather ones which can be adopted easily through our interactions. This is the human element of engineering which goes overlooked: teamwork, formality, communication, collaboration, and project management skills. Finally, the most important arguably is the 3rd: critical-thinking. Without this, the others just don’t work well.

To thrive as a creative electronic engineer, keep yourself updated with the latest advancements in the field. Engage with industry journals, workshops, and online forums to stay informed and inspired. This ongoing education will sharpen your technical skills and spark innovative ideas, paving the way for a successful and fulfilling career.

To carve out a successful career as a creative electronic engineer, networking is key. Connect with peers, mentors, and industry leaders through events, associations, and social media. A diverse network can offer valuable insights, collaborative projects, and job opportunities, enriching your career journey and fueling your creativity along the way.

People working in RnD especially need to have a mindset that allows them to get past failures. In this domain one has to experiment hugely and the success rate is quite low. I think an electronics engineer should make sure to have something accomplished on a daily basis to keep their juices running. It can be as small as debugging a circuit or even using a fundamental to design something useful in the project. I have seen people drop interest in the domain and the creativity level goes down due to contant failures in the current project, one can try to sit back, take a different project for some time to allow a breather and then start over. Getting in touch with new advancements and quick chats with peers help a lot in the same.

One can see innovations in huge industrial machinery as well as complex and intricate IoT systems and automotive systems at the same time creative systems can be seen in something as small as a smoke detector or smaller consumer electronics. At the end of the day a system has to work as per the constraints available, and those contraints can either be space, power consumption, cost or combination of all of these. One can find great creativity in building these systems. I personally love to teardown different set of products, look for latest technology or innovation and be connected with a lot of journals that share great insights on latest developments.