PurPassionCity

Electrical Engineer

The pull to bring into existence

Creation · Nothing → Something

The shape of the work

Pace
  • A steady rhythm with room to breathe
  • Patient work over a long time, where showing up matters most
What your week looks likeA bit of everything — hard to pin down
How much you move around at workHalf moving, half sitting — depends on the day
Whether you can work from anywhereSome days in, some days wherever you want
How quickly you receive feedback on your workTakes a season or a project cycle
What you're actually working withNumbers, measurements, records — things you read on a screen / Materials, organisms, land, equipment — things you can touch

Behaviours this work is made of

Core
  • Breaking something into its real components.
  • Conceptual architecture. Figuring out how something should work before it exists.
  • Applying systematic problem-solving to make things work reliably.
Also present
  • Creating the record that allows others to understand later.
  • Building a simplified version of a system — a climate, a river, a city's traffic — to test what might happen.
  • Verifying whether something is true or works as claimed.

In words

An electrical engineer designs, tests and looks after systems that generate, move and use electrical power. That covers the supply to a building, the wiring and control systems of a factory, motors and drives, lighting, a wind farm's connection to the grid, and the power systems of trains and ships. The main pull is Creation: the engineer calculates loads, chooses equipment, draws the system and specifies how it should be installed. This is different from electronics, where the circuits are small and carry signals. Electrical engineering mostly deals with larger currents and voltages and the safety that comes with them.

Protection is a large part of the work, because electricity at power levels can start fires and kill. The engineer calculates what happens when something goes wrong (a short circuit, an overload) and designs protective devices so the fault is isolated safely. Resolution comes with commissioning and fault work, where a system that should work does not and has to be traced.

Titles overlap. A power engineer, controls engineer or building services (MEP) engineer is often doing a form of electrical engineering. In the US and Canada, "electrical engineer" also commonly covers what the UK calls electronics, and the BLS groups the two. This field keeps them as separate roles because the daily work differs.

There's a guide here if you want one

Kitsune can talk through anything on this page — whether it might suit you, what to do next, questions this page doesn't answer. Everything here is yours to read either way.

Electrical engineers are in demand for the energy transition: renewable generation, grid upgrades, electric vehicle charging and data centres all need more of them, and many countries report a shortage [our read of how the field works, 2026]. Much of the work is less glamorous than it sounds, such as cable sizing, drawings and standards compliance, and a lot of time goes into reading codes and regulations. Safety training is serious, because the work involves live equipment. The BLS median for electrical and electronics engineers was $118,780 in May 2024 [US Bureau of Labor Statistics].

Most electrical engineers hold a bachelor's degree in electrical or electrical and electronic engineering. Graduate schemes at utilities, consultancies and manufacturers are the common start, and several years of experience under supervision lead to professional registration (Chartered Engineer in the UK, Professional Engineer in the US and Canada), which is required for some roles in power and building design. Apprenticeships and technician routes lead into the same area, often through an electrician or technician role, and some people complete a degree part-time while working.

Before you go