Electrical Engineering — careers, salary, ROI
The oldest engineering discipline still delivers strong outcomes. Here's the honest read.
Career fit for EE majors →What you'll study
Circuits, signals and systems, electromagnetic theory, power systems, control systems, embedded systems, communications, and typically a specialisation (power, RF, embedded, VLSI, signal processing).
Career paths
- Electrical engineer — $105K median (US)
- VLSI / Chip design engineer — $135K median (booming with AI hardware demand)
- Power systems engineer — $95K median
- Embedded systems engineer — $110K median
- RF / wireless engineer — $115K median
- Robotics engineer — $120K median
EE vs CS
CS pays more on average. EE is more resistant to offshoring and has less competition per opening. Chip design in particular is having a moment — TSMC, NVIDIA, AMD, and Indian fabs are hiring aggressively.
Frequently asked questions
Is EE still relevant in the AI era?
Yes — someone has to design the chips. Chip design has become one of the highest-paid EE tracks in the last 3 years.
Careers this major opens
The US Department of Education maps Electrical and Electronics Engineering (CIP 14.1001) to 6 Standard Occupational Classification codes. Salary and employment figures come from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics via O*NET; the AI-durability signal is our own composite score.
Sources: NCES CIP-2020 → SOC-2018 crosswalk · US Bureau of Labor Statistics (via O*NET) · WhatTNext Ai AI-durability score. Careers ranked by US employment volume.