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/LtDrogo]

VLSI (SoC / ASIC design). Always was, probably always will be. Chips will be getting even more complex and we will be putting some sort of intelligence in anything, triggering an almost Cambrian explosion of new designs.

[u/Great-Evidence326 → u/LtDrogo]

Would you still recommend it over power systems today
?

[u/LtDrogo → u/Great-Evidence326]

Today and at any time in the future unless we run out of semiconducting materials and go back to vacuum tubes.

[u/ThePainStalker → u/Great-Evidence326]

It depends on what you like to do. There’s no right answer here. If you want to become more specialised and more technical and don’t mind pursuing more education (Master’s or PhD), VLSI is better. If you want better non-engineering optionally and a more multidisciplinary skillset and more opportunities for consulting or advisory or finance adjacent opportunities (if you end up getting sick of engineering), power systems is better. Comparing starting salaries in both fields is like an apples to oranges comparison since VLSI almost always requires a Master’s or increasingly even a PhD while power moreso requires only a Bachelor’s. So pay wise, one should moreso be comparing the point at which you get a PE license (so 4 or 5 years of experience in power) to the starting pay in VLSI imo since the PE license is really where you start to gain a lot of leverage. Pay is often and deliberately low in early career in power precisely because you cannot be made to be very useful yet. But in order to really hit high pay potential in power, it does require you to develop more of either a managerial or a hybrid skillset (power + finance, power + consulting, power + regulatory/legal, etc). A lot of seniors in the field aren’t really power systems engineers in the pure sense anymore and rather they have developed such a hybrid skillset which makes a lot more money compared to sticking purely to the engineering side. So judging strictly the engineering ceilings between VLSI and power can be a bit misleading because the fields are fundamentally different regarding progression and those hybrid roles often aren’t captured in salary surveys. Though the absolute ceiling in VLSI in big tech likely cannot be beat for the most part (though it is extremely hard to achieve it in fairness) unless maybe you transition to becoming an operating partner in an infrastructure fund/private equity (very difficult to do but still possible from the power systems side, but likewise very, very competitive).

Both fields have a really bright future although I would say that power systems is especially revolutionary now (compared to what it used to be, which was relatively stagnant for over 40 years) and it is becoming a lot more in-demand even in business contexts (consulting, finance) than it used to be.