Yeah, it’s a great choice if you are willing to make a career as a computer engineer. According to the BLS Report job outlook for computer engineering will surge to 20 percent in the upcoming decade.
Before we start with the roadmap for How to become a computer engineer, you should know about the computer engineer work area, benefits of becoming and duties.
Where Do Computer Engineers Work
Computer Engineers are not limited to the IT industry; they participate in various other sectors as well pharmacy, automobile, aviation, medical, eCommerce and many more.
Apart from diversification, some benefits of being a computer engineer include job satisfaction, remote work opportunities, a good salary package, and rapid learning opportunities.
Duties of Computer Engineer
- Perform Routine Checks, which include hardware working and software updates.
- Company’s Data Storage security and management
- Innovate new frameworks to avoid irregularities in accessing the data
Roadmap for How To Become a Computer Engineer
Step 1 - Preparation From High School
If you dream of becoming a professional computer engineer, and you are pursuing high school or passing out, you should have good command over certain subjects such as mathematics, statistics and physics,
As per the experts, these subjects help students to develop their logical thinking, analysis mindset, problem-solving approach,
If you see around yourself, each appliance mechanism includes some contribution of computer science; the reason behind this is under each appliance, computer science programming helps to make work easier or solve real-time problems.
So, it’s necessary before you approach the college to study computer engineering professional education, you should have good command over subjects such as mathematics, physics and statistics.
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In high school, if you learn some basics of computer programming, it will also make some difference in your college studies and during admission.
Step 2 - Get the degree
Everyone has a different perspective regarding the education requirement for computer engineer,
Some say getting a degree in computer engineering is not essential, as per our view you should understand your choice, whether you want to become a skilled engineer or a well educated skilled engineer,
Yes we can easily become skilled in the computer engineering field and learn the implementation of programming languages, and start working on hardware frameworks,
But when you want to upgrade your career or specialize in a particular section of computer engineering, you need to have an undergrad degree, which is a foundational representation of your skill and experience for a master’s education.
It’s our advice to prepare for the long run. You must have an undergraduate degree from a reputed school, which will help you greatly in your career.
Computer Engineering College not only provides degrees, they also help in nourishing your skills and give you a strong foundation of concepts. Many colleges also have separate placement cells, where you will be guided to crack big tech companies’ jobs and internships.
Guidelines for choosing computer science schools
- Schools must have a practical focus on their program
- Consider location – it helps to explore internship and job opportunity
- Companies come for recruitment in school
- Research Opportunities for undergrad
- Student and Faculty Ratio (some students comfort with fewer students in the class)
- Tuition Fees (Don’t overburden life with debts, so calculate it smartly)
- Accreditation
Step 3 - Become Expert in Particular Niche
Nowadays, the market trend is moulding towards specialization-specific hiring, for which professionals are getting good pay as well, and most crucial, narrowing down your career path in a specific field will help you become an expert in that specialization,
To become a computer engineer in a particular specialization, you need to do a master’s, as under a master’s degree, you will get the opportunity to do deep research with mentor guidance.
We have listed the specializations in which the market has good demand with future expertise –
- Artificial intelligence
- Machine Learning
- Big Data Analysis
- Cybernetics
- Interface Design
- Embedded Systems
- Bioinformatics
- Medical Image Computing
- Computer Graphics and Visualization
Step 4 - Work in Projects
Implementation of skills in the projects is like a booster in your career, and you will be able to determine various mistakes as well as learn new trends in the industry,
Getting into the project can be the internship or your project. First, start with an internship; under this, you will get good guidance from the experts, which you can later implement on the projects.
Various platforms are available to practice programming for cracking internship and job programming round. We have listed down some of the websites. Check out; it might help you –
- CodeChef
- Project Euler
- HackerRank
- SPOJ
- Codewars
- TopCoder
- CodinGame
- Geektastic
- LeetCode
Apart from this, getting an internship and doing your projects allows you to add points to your resume, and you will get preference for jobs.
Step 5 - Get Certifications
To showcase your expertise in the particular area of computer engineering, various companies such as Microsoft, Red hat and many more started giving certifications to professionals, and the recruiters also consider it a prerequisite option.
These certifications make you stand out from the crowd and prepare you for new industry trends; you can also mention these certifications in the resume to make it stronger and more preferable to employers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Computer Engineers have good demand in future, as per surveys projected growth is 13 percent in upcoming decade (this projection includes computer science)
Yes computer engineers are paid well, they are been ranked in among top 15 highest paying occupation in country.
Yes you can teach yourself computer science, there are many websites available which help you learn in easier way.
If you see the average annual salary for computer engineers, it goes approx. $ 80,635.
As a computer engineer, you need to maintain hardware component of department, along with upgradation of software, Along with storage, accessibility and security of data is one of the important task involve in your jobs
It totally depend on the education perceives, normally it takes four to five years, while if someone pursue masters it will take two years more.
