Telecommunications Engineering Career

A telecommunication engineer can work for engineering consulting firms, telecommunications companies and government agencies to design and install equipments used to transmit cellular, wired phone, broadband and cable data. Telecommunications engineering involves dealing with complex switching systems, networks, and optical cables.

How to Become a Telecommunications Engineer

Telecommunication engineers are typically holders of bachelor’s degrees in electronic or electrical engineering. To study for this course, you must have a high school diploma with good performance and interest in mathematics, chemistry and physics. The Society for Cable Telecommunications Engineers recommends that entrants in the telecommunications engineering career must be ready to advance their career to cope with the dynamic fast technology. Other skills required to become a telecommunications engineer include creativity, problem solving skills, and ability to work with a variety of team members to complete projects. Besides this, you must analytical, methodical and have interest in practical working of telecommunications equipments.

Types, Description and Information

The telecommunication engineering field is a very specialized career field where positions are readily available depending on an applicant’s skills and training. These fields include optical network systems, data network systems, next generation network systems, broadband technologies and wireless network systems. There are a number of career opportunities available in the telecommunication careers fields for qualified personnel, including telecommunications systems test engineering, telecommunications design, telecommunications network engineering, telecommunications network planning, telecommunications network technician and telecommunication executives.

Qualifications: Courses, Training, Certification

Schools, Colleges and Education

There are many institutes across the country offering specialized courses in telecommunication engineering. The course curriculum often includes modules like optical network systems, network systems design and many more. Addition courses offered are intranet and internet management and design project management and sophisticated telecommunication technologies. The top telecommunication colleges offering these courses are listed below:

1. Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

2. University of California, Berkeley

3. Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia

4. Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA

5. Cornell University in Ithaca, NY

Job Opportunities, Salaries and Recruitment

The overall employment market in the telecommunications industry is expected to grow rapidly by about 7% over the next ten years courtesy of bureau of labor statistics. The telecommunications sector is growing fast and the demand for telecommunication engineers rises with it. The employment for engineers will expand and continue to grow over the next 20 years. Salary.com reports that a telecommunication engineer with between two and four years experience earned a median salary of $62,393 in 2008 while starters in the industry earned $50,827 in January 2008.