{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/electronics-engineers-except-computer/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Electronics Engineers, Except Computer", "soc_code": "17-2072", "category": "Engineering", "us_employment": 96900, "median_annual_wage": 130220 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 46, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 9, "liability_shield": 6, "trust_premium": 7, "judgment_accountability": 13 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Schematic capture from a known topology, BOM selection against datasheet parameters, SPICE sweeps, register-map documentation, and DO-160/61000 test-plan drafting are already being generated at usable quality, but bringing up a switching supply that ripples at 300kHz, chasing a ground-loop that only appears with the motor running, or correlating a failed radiated-emissions scan to a specific clock harmonic still takes someone at the bench with a scope probe — that split is why this sits at 11 rather than in the resistant band.", "embodiment": "You are not in a trench, but you are also not screen-only: probing a live board, reworking 0402s and BGAs with hot air, sitting in the anechoic chamber with a spectrum analyzer, running thermal chambers to -40C and 85C, and crawling into an enclosure to find where the harness couples noise are recurring days, and that intermittent-but-real hands-on load is a 9 rather than a 15 because the environment is a lab you control, not a rooftop or a refinery.", "liability_shield": "The industrial exemption in nearly every state PE statute means the vast majority of electronics engineers design, release, and ship products without ever stamping a drawing, so the enforceable barrier is your employer's design-review process and standards like IEC 60601 or ISO 26262 — the 6 credits the fact that safety-critical and utility-adjacent work does occasionally demand a licensed signatory, not that most of you carry one.", "trust_premium": "Your output is a board, a spec, and a test report that has to work regardless of who authored it, and the customer usually never meets you; the 7 reflects the real but bounded relationship capital with the fab, the contract manufacturer's process engineer, and the certification lab that gets your unit re-tested quickly rather than queued for six weeks.", "judgment_accountability": "Deciding a derating margin, accepting a part with a 20-year EOL risk, signing off that an isolation barrier meets creepage under pollution degree 2, or calling a field-failure root cause fixed are decisions with recall-scale consequences and no procedure that settles them, which puts this at the top of the discretion band — short of 14+ only because those calls typically pass through a design review board rather than resting on you alone." }, "rationale": "The desk half of this job — datasheet trawling, block diagrams, component selection, SPICE setup, register maps, test plans, compliance paperwork, and glue firmware — is exactly what current models do at usable quality, and EDA vendors are shipping AI layout and verification assistants into the tools. The half that holds is bench reality: an analog front end that oscillates, EMI that only shows up in the chamber, a thermal problem in the enclosure, a board that passes sim and fails at -40C. Licensure is a weak moat here because the industrial exemption means most electronics engineers never stamp anything, so protection comes from debug skill and owning safety-critical design calls rather than from a seal.", "outlook": "Headcount per product drops as AI absorbs schematic, firmware, and documentation work, while demand shifts toward engineers who can debug real hardware and own safety and manufacturability sign-off.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Functional-safety and airworthiness regimes attaching personal, named sign-off to electronics design: DO-254 avionics hardware approvals via FAA Designated Engineering Representatives, ISO 26262 / IEC 61508 'competent person' safety-case signature, and FDA design-history-file review signatures on Class II/III device electronics. If auditors and notified bodies begin requiring that AI-generated schematics, FPGA/ASIC logic, and verification evidence be attested by a named engineer who accepts personal responsibility for the tool qualification (DO-330-style), the shield rises materially for the safety-critical slice of the occupation.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Narrowing of the state industrial exemption. NCEES and several state boards have repeatedly floated limiting the manufacturing exemption; a state adopting PE-stamp requirements for electronics in life-safety systems (fire alarm, medical, utility-connected power electronics, EV charging infrastructure) would create an actual seal where today there is none. Watch state licensure bills and NFPA 72 fire-alarm design-document rules, which already push toward stamped electrical design.", "plausibility": "unlikely", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "EU Cyber Resilience Act and RED Article 3(3) cybersecurity obligations force a named responsible person behind the Declaration of Conformity for connected hardware; if firms designate the lead electronics engineer as the accountable signer for security-relevant hardware design decisions (secure boot, key storage, debug-port lockdown), the role formally owns consequential calls it currently makes informally.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: this occupation genuinely has two tiers. If EDA AI assistants absorb schematic capture, component selection, register maps, SPICE setup and testbench generation, the residual job concentrates in the tier models do worst — root-causing an oscillating analog loop, chasing EMI that only appears in the anechoic chamber, thermal derating in a real enclosure, corner-case failures at -40C, and second-source respins under allocation. Resistance rises only if firms keep those tasks with the same job title rather than splitting off a separate 'hardware validation' occupation.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Role absorption of lab and chamber work: if headcount cuts on the desk tier leave the remaining engineers personally running EMC pre-compliance sweeps, thermal chambers, HALT/HASS, oscilloscope/VNA probing on live boards, and field failure teardowns, the physical share of the day rises. This is a redefinition of the job's day, not a new capability barrier, so the gain is modest.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Provenance requirements in defense and space: ITAR/DFARS and NASA/DoD contract clauses requiring documented human authorship and traceability of design artifacts, plus prohibitions on submitting technical data to non-accredited AI tools, would make a human-authored design a purchased attribute rather than a preference. Narrow — applies to cleared programs, not commercial consumer electronics.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "The industrial exemption is the binding constraint: absent it, no seal exists for most of these 96,900 workers, and the liability levers above only reach the safety-critical minority (avionics, medical, automotive, utility). Commercial and consumer electronics design has no realistic route to a trust premium — buyers pay for a working, cheap board, not a human-drawn one. Realistic ceiling for the occupation as a whole is the high 50s; individual safety-critical niches can go considerably higher while the median consumer-hardware role does not move." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 134930, "wage": 102180 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 134110, "wage": 102700 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 128800, "wage": 105570 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 122320, "wage": 107540 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 107170, "wage": 104820 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 106640, "wage": 108170 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 96410, "wage": 119200 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 93940, "wage": 127590 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 96900, "wage": 130220 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -28.2, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "nuclear-engineers", "title": "Nuclear Engineers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 57, "median_wage": 133970, "overlap": 68, "skills_to_close": [ "Science", "Mathematics", "Operations Analysis", "Active Learning" ] }, { "slug": "architectural-and-engineering-managers", "title": "Architectural and Engineering Managers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 56, "median_wage": 171270, "overlap": 62, "skills_to_close": [ "Time Management", "Management of Financial Resources", "Active Learning", "Coordination" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }