Career in DSP

Hi.

I just graduated in December with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from a prominent Southern California university. For privacy's sake, I won't disclose its name but I will say that its mascot rhymes with "shoo-ins". Anyway, while I was there I took classes on a lot of different topics but the ones I enjoyed the most were the ones on signal processing (DSP, signals and systems, image processing, etc.).

I'd love to get a job in that field but every time I search for DSP related jobs I see several terms in the requirements section that I've never even heard of. When I was in college I studied things like FIR filters, IIR filters, Z-transforms, sampling, etc. But in these job listings I see things like ASIC, FPGA, VHDL, etc.

How can I teach myself these things? I'm taking a few free open courses at MIT on signal processing and I got a few books on college-level DSP exercises for MATLAB, but is that enough? I know I saw a few books on DSP programming in C. Would that do?

In other words, where should I go if I want to get a DSP related job? Do I have to go to grad school?

 

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Note: I work in HR. I do executive recruiting and job placement for a living.

I recommend you continue your studies to your masters. It will be time well spent. Even if you're spending money you don't have (i.e. student loans)** and are just TIRED of school, the difference in pay scale, opportunities and access increases significantly in the world of engineering when you go to the graduate level. 18 months will be nothing in comparison to the success you achieve throughout the rest of your life.

One thing I will tell you is this: you picked the right course of study and can rest comfortable knowing that, barring anything catastrophic, you'll have solid employment (more than likely six-figure employment within a few years) for the rest of your life. You should be proud. In the USA there is a shortfall of various engineers and physicists that number in the many thousands. Many corporations are prohibited, by law, from hiring anybody but a natural born citizen, or a person who's been a citizen for many years (mostly those firms that service the DoD and other sensitive areas of the government). Were it not for those factors, a degree in Engineering is still a solid choice and I commend you on pursuing that line of education.

Beyond these things, finding the right job involves one question: where do you want to live? Location choice greatly effects career opportunities. Phoenix, Seattle, LA, Chicago, D.C. and Dallas are all areas that have the best opportunities for Engineers. And best thing is: if you move out west, you'll get a house for a steal!

Good luck to you, though I doubt you'll need it.

~String

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**Again, spend the money, go back to school. Get the Masters. I can't say this loudly and fervently enough. GET. YOUR. MASTERS!!!

 

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I disagree with superstring, engineers don't respect people with Masters more than those with bachelors and are no more likely to keep them on staff than regular engineers. If you know how to do your job your education does not matter in the engineering field. What they do respect is people with experience, people who know how to do their job, and people who don't ask stupid questions.

If you can learn the basics of the field I would suggest you get a job with a digital communications company. They seem to be pushing the limits on comercial application of these technologies and their relatively large size allows for significant on-site training that will build on your existing electrical knowledge. If they want you to do more they will offer your the opportunity to go back to school...

I'm not sure where String is getting his figures either. Level I engineers make about 60k median, and on average max out at around 150. It will take probably 10 to 15 years to move into the upper echelon Engineering ranks. A masters may be necessary in specific elements of engineer, for example, aerospace is highly competitive today.

Note: I believe Superstring is correct in his analysis with relation to most degrees.

 

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First off, some terminology: the stuff you learned in school (signals and systems, etc.) are usually called just "signal processing" instead of "dsp" (although they are often digital). The term "DSP" is used in industry to refer to the actual dsp chips (and fpga's) and the work of designing and implementing them. Often there will be little-to-no actual signal processing design involved in such jobs (you will be implementing algorithms designed by someone else, often from standards bodies).

If you want to work in actual signal processing - i.e., design of algorithms - you will probably need to get at least a master's degree (and preferably a PhD) specialized in signal processing, communications systems, soure coding or controls. And you should be looking for jobs with those keywords, as opposed to "dsp" which, again, refers more to hardware and firmware implementation of fixed algorithms (at least for job search purposes) than actual signal processing engineering.

Also, go Tritons!

 

Let me just add that for the field in question - signal processing - a Masters is pretty much mandatory. Undergrad EE programs typically do not cover even the basics of the field (statistical signal processing, adaptive filters, array processing, image processing, wavelets, estimation theory, detection theory, information theory, channel coding, source coding, etc.), let alone get you up to the cutting edge. Your typical applicant for a signal processing job has a PhD in the field, has published several peer-reviewed papers and knows people from the conference circuit.

 

What about audio engineering? What all would I have to learn for a career in that, and would I need to get a Master's in order to pursue a career in it?

 

Depends on what you mean by "audio engineering." That can mean anything from working in a recording studio hooking up microphones (in which case, you wasted a lot of time by attending college when you could have been volunteering to pick up pizzas for the local recording engineers), to designing stereos and PAs, to audio coding and other classic signal processing jobs (in which case, see above).