Hi everyone,

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I’m posting here because I currently feel pretty confused and generally overwhelmed.

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I’ve recently finished a masters in mechatronics, and I have an undergraduate degree in mechatronics and math. I’ve recently started a phd as well because I love the actual science behind engineering design. My phd area of research is actually pretty decent, but sometimes not directly related to what I feel passionate about.

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I’m really into electrical hardware design for embedded systems, FPGAs and I don’t mind the surrounding fields such as firmware design.

I would like to apply for these jobs overseas, but there are two issues:

1. I live in Australia, the hardware industry here is either defence or non existent. I basically must move, there are countries I can get a visa easily in due to my university such as UK.
2. Universities here have a strong focus on software, with a much lower focus on hardware because of the job conditions, and everyone here seems to think that hardware is dirty/not useful in most cases. Being in an environment where I hear this often is also slightly demotivating. As a result. I don’t feel overly confident in my ECE skills.

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What I’ve been trying to do so far is revise some of my theory concepts from ECE which I’m enjoying as a pass time/relaxing hobby, but I’m wondering what true technical skills/projects I can learn and develop to assist me in this endeavour. It’s hard to find a roadmap to learn this really, which is why I’m looking here for advise. I’m also open to taking courses to learn things.

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in summary:

1. What hard skills, programming languages, hardware design, software should I be learning to improve my chances at landing an ECE job?
2. What are some projects I can do to display these skills to future employers?
3. What hardware should I focus on to learn these skills?

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im open for any suggestions. Anything people think is relevant will be immensely helpful.

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Thanks!