U.S. Engineering Career Trends

The National Science Foundation documents a three-decade boom in the U.S. engineering workforce.

How has the engineering field changed over the last 30 years? A demographic snapshot of the engineering workforce reveals the following:

* There are two- to three-times as many engineers;

* Younger engineers have more and higher engineering degrees than ever before;

* Electrical engineering has replaced mechanical engineering as the predominant field while software engineering is growing rapidly;

* Design has replaced development as engineers' primary job function;

* Engineers now spend more time on management and other human resources-related …