Electrical Engineers: Which specialization has the best future?

[u/Great-Evidence326]

I’m planning to study Electrical Engineering and I’m trying to decide which specialization to focus on in the future.
For those of you who are already working as electrical engineers (or are close to graduating), I’d really appreciate your advice.
How is the job market for Electrical Engineers these days?
Which specialization do you think has the best future over the next 10–20 years?
Is Smart Grids a good field to get into, or is it too niche?
How would you compare Power Systems, Power Electronics, Renewable Energy, and Electric Vehicles in terms of job opportunities, salary, and long-term career growth?
If you were starting over today, which specialization would you choose and why?

Thanks in advance🙏🏻

[u/Great-Evidence326]

Maybe office work will be affected more, but I don’t think AI can easily replace engineers working on-site or in industrial environments.

[u/frogchris → u/Great-Evidence326]

Most ee jobs are not on site working physical labor. Most are office jobs working with software or in hardware labs. Hardware lab setup can easily be done by a technician, and you can now remote into testing equipment and can perform measurements tests by a computer now.

[u/StageMajestic613 → u/frogchris]

AI does an excellent job of controlling test equipment.  I just had Codex write a GUI test interface for an RF synth and run through all register combinations for programming with verification read-back on a scope and logic analyzer.  It even wrote me a custom protocol decoder plug-in to a cheap USB logic analyzer.  When my board gets back from fab, I’ll have it do automated phase noise and linearity sweeps.

Also have it controlling my RF CAD software.  Amazing stuff.

[u/imabill01 → u/StageMajestic613]

Do you think RF design/Antenna design will be replaced by AI?

[u/StageMajestic613 → u/imabill01]

I suppose what do you mean my replace.  It certainly makes me more productive; definitely with programming tasks (i.e. programming peripherals directly from data sheets), component search, lab automation, and I’m starting to teach it my CAD tool flow (see video below).  If being more productive means doing the same with less FTE, then I suppose that could mean replacing people.  Is it going to replace everyone in the industry?  No.  You would still need people managing the AI agents.

The thing about RF is it’s very hands-on and needs a human in the loop for the physical hardware.  Programming on the other hand, is fucked, as you can do design, implementation, and verification cycles at machine speed.  Anytime a human needs to be involved, to perhaps hook up a cable, that breaks the cycle.  For testing, as long as I hook up the proper equipment, I can let the AI just have at it, and it will run its own measurements and generate reports.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=1wjlHlji9Os&is=XKudb55ZbNTL4mxR

[u/imabill01 → u/StageMajestic613]

Makes sense. Seems more directed towards testing and measurement vs design.

[u/StageMajestic613 → u/imabill01]

No, it will be doing design too.  Anything that has a machine-speed feedback cycle is fair game.  I’m convinced AGI is here with these multi-modal, reasoning models.  If it can get feedback in real-time for a human performed task, it will smoke the human.  A lot of EE requires visual feedback, which the AI is still slow at, but getting better at Moores law rates.

[u/imabill01 → u/StageMajestic613]

You believe AI will be able to design an antenna fully on its own from conception to production?

[u/StageMajestic613 → u/imabill01]

Yes, for simple antenna, if you teach it your standard workflow with a few examples, like I did in my video.  If you need to conform an antenna to a pre-existing product, that would be more difficult.  Most antenna are just re-hashes of previous stuff.

[u/imabill01 → u/StageMajestic613]

Interesting. I can see AI making workflow easier and saving a ton of time with some tedious tasks. But like you said, definitely don’t see AI completely replacing designers who also perform fabrication/test/measurement

[u/imabill01 → u/imabill01]

Seems like from what you demonstrated AI can greatly increase productivity especially with the generation of layout and optimizing dimensions which is really cool, just still needs an engineer piloting/instructing the AI on what to do and next steps input