---
title: "Electronics Engineer, Except Computer"
description: "Research, design, develop, or test electronic components and systems for commercial, industrial, military, or scientific use employing knowledge of…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/electronics-engineer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Electronics Engineer, Except Computer

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-2072 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-2072.00

Research, design, develop, or test electronic components and systems for commercial, industrial, military, or scientific use employing knowledge of electronic theory and materials properties. Design electronic circuits and components for use in fields such as telecommunications, aerospace guidance and propulsion control, acoustics, or instruments and controls.

Also advertised as: Compatibility Test Engineer; Design Engineer; Electronics Design Engineer; Engineer; Evaluation Engineer; Integrated Circuit Design Engineer (IC Design Engineer); Product Engineer; Radio Frequency Engineer (RF Engineer).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $130,220 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $62.60/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $81,840 to $206,960, with the middle half between $101,680 and $167,670
- **Total US employment:** 96,900
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 4,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 29/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 96,900 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $81,840 |
| 25th | $101,680 |
| 50th (median) | $130,220 |
| 75th | $167,670 |
| 90th | $206,960 |
| Mean (average) | $137,280 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $160,520 | $144,978 | 20,830 |
| NJ | $158,730 | $145,885 | 1,820 |
| DC | $157,040 | $142,892 | 400 |
| MD | $155,650 | $148,296 | 3,390 |
| MA | $138,230 | $130,705 | 5,910 |
| NM | $136,990 | $148,560 | 1,110 |
| RI | $136,360 | $133,320 | 970 |
| TX | $132,220 | $136,229 | 9,520 |
| WA | $130,270 | $121,733 | 1,950 |
| IL | $129,390 | $129,444 | 960 |
| UT | $128,430 | $129,906 | 1,570 |
| ME | $127,490 | $131,365 | Not published by BLS |
| MI | $127,200 | $132,201 | 2,960 |
| CO | $127,010 | $123,248 | 6,080 |
| HI | $126,690 | $115,224 | 310 |

36 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 51 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/electronics-engineer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/electronics-engineer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 98,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 101,800 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 3,600 jobs, or +3.7%. About as fast as average: 3.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 4,900 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 83.3% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 13.8% |
| Master's Degree | 2.9% |

## What the work involves

- Prepare documentation containing information such as confidential descriptions or specifications of proprietary hardware or software, product development or introduction schedules, product costs, or information about product performance weaknesses.
- Recommend repair or design modifications of electronics components or systems, based on factors such as environment, service, cost, or system capabilities.
- Confer with engineers, customers, vendors, or others to discuss existing or potential electronics engineering projects or products.
- Operate computer-assisted engineering or design software or equipment to perform electronics engineering tasks.
- Develop or perform operational, maintenance, or testing procedures for electronic products, components, equipment, or systems.
- Evaluate project work to ensure effectiveness, technical adequacy, or compatibility in the resolution of complex electronics engineering problems.
- Determine project material or equipment needs.
- Direct or coordinate activities concerned with manufacture, construction, installation, maintenance, operation, or modification of electronic equipment, products, or systems.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Analysis — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Engineering and Technology — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.24 |
| I — Investigative | 5.81 |
| C — Conventional | 4.68 |
| A — Artistic | 2.03 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.62 |
| S — Social | 1.59 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 89.1 |
| ISTP | 85.8 |
| INTJ | 82.5 |
| INTP | 66.5 |
| ISFJ | 63.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISTP. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronic-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $78,190
- [Electrical and Electronics Repairer, Commercial and Industrial Equipment](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronics-repairer-commercial-and-industrial-equipment) — median $74,090
- [Electrical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-engineer) — median $120,630
- [Microsystems Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/microsystems-engineer) — median $122,930
- [Mechatronics Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechatronics-engineer) — median $122,930
- [Radio Frequency Identification Device Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/radio-frequency-identification-device-specialist) — median $130,220
- [Mechanical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineer) — median $104,110
- [Photonics Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/photonics-engineer) — median $122,930
- [Robotics Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/robotics-engineer) — median $122,930
- [Industrial Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-engineer) — median $102,440

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/electronics-engineer