Hardware Test Engineer

Career Area: Engineering

Occupation Group: Electrical, Electronic, and Related Engineering

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Hardware Test Engineer earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $77,395

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $92,520

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Designs and develops test processes for computer hardware and computer-related equipment. Creates test plans and equipment, implements and monitors test processes, and completes hardware product validations.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Hardware Test Engineer is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting or dpanneuring is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system.
• Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
• Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
• Writing: Experience expressing business messages effectively in written form. This may include planning drafting and revising as necessary.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Test Equipment: Test equipment is a general term describing equipment used in many fields.
• Hardware Experience: Experience developing hardware that provides a user-friendly experience, allowing the user to interact with the software or hardware in a natural and intuitive way.
• Python: Python is a widely used high-level programming language for general-purpose programming, created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991.
• Oscilloscopes: An oscilloscope, previously called an oscillograph, and informally known as a scope, CRO (for cathode-ray oscilloscope), or DSO (for the more modern digital storage oscilloscope), is a type of electronic test instrument that allows observation of constantly varying signal voltages, usually as a two-dimensional plot of one or more signals as a function of time.
• C++: C++ (pronounced cee plus plus ) is a general-purpose programming language.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Hardware Test Engineer that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Verilog: Verilog, standardized as IEEE 1364, is a hardware description language (HDL) used to model electronic systems.
• Circuit Design: The process of circuit design can cover systems ranging from complex electronic systems all the way down to the individual transistors within an integrated circuit.
• Embedded Systems: An embedded system is a computer system with a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electrical system, often with real-time computing constraints.
• PCB Layout and Design: DesignSpark PCB is a free electronics design software, (EDA software is a sub-class of computer-aided design (CAD) software.) Although there is no charge for the software, the user must register with the website to unlock the program and it displays advertisements which must be acknowledged before the user can begin working.
• Logic Analyzers: A logic analyzer is an electronic instrument that captures and displays multiple signals from a digital system or digital circuit.

Salary Boosting Skills

A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills:

• Graphics Processing Units (GPU): Working experience of Graphics Processing Units (GPU). A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobile phones, personal computers, workstations, and game consoles.
• Verilog: Verilog, standardized as IEEE 1364, is a hardware description language (HDL) used to model electronic systems.
• Test Tools: Experience using software products that are functionally designed to test various functional and non-functional requirements of software.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Hardware Test Engineer
• Senior Hardware Test Engineer
• Hardware Verification Engineer
• Hardware Engineer
• Hardware Quality Engineer

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Hardware Design Engineer
• Hardware Engineer
• Integrated Circuit (IC) Design Engineer
• Computer Circuit Design Engineer
• Firmware Engineer
• Embedded Software Engineer