Electrical vs electronic engineers: What’s the difference?

To non-engineers, the distinction between electrical and electronic engineering can be very confusing as both involve electricity and are often grouped under the same university department. Sometimes there are overlaps, while other times the differences are very noticeable. Electronics is often described as a sub-category of electrical engineering, but even so, there are crucial differences between the two that impact the available employment opportunities.

To put it plainly, electrical engineering is a branch of engineering that deals with production and distribution of electricity, either on a large-scale or in delivering power to a specific site or equipment.

They primarily deal with transmitting electrical power through mechanical objects as well as figuring out how to store that engineering. Electrical engineers may design, develop, test, and supervise the manufacturing of all manner of electrical equipment from electric motors, radars, and navigation systems to communications systems and power generation equipment.

They can work in areas that involve electromagnetics, power efficiency, motors, optics (lasers), lighting, and utility-power transmissions. Basically, these are the folks who ensure that power flows from point A to point B.

By contrast, electronic engineers aren’t so much concerned with power transmission, but with designing the components and circuitry that make-up the electronic equipment itself, and ensuring that product—typically a computer or computer-related device—functions. For this reason, electronics engineering is often classified as a subset of electrical engineering that specifically works with circuits that can interpret signals or instructions and perform a task related to the inputted parameters.

Electronic engineers are the people who construct the internal circuitry of products like mobile phones, audio-visual equipment, televisions, satellites, flight systems, radar and sonar systems and communications systems.

Hopefully this example will clarify the differences if you’re still confused:

While both engineering types may work with smart phones, it’s the electrical engineer’s job to figure out a way to transform the voice and visual data generated by the phone into transmittable electrical signals that travel through satellite relays. By contrast, the electronics engineer may be the one who developed the components that make the smartphone function.

So how do these fields bode as far as the Bureau of Labor is concerned? Pretty lucrative as far as the median 2015 salary of both professions is concerned: electrical engineer made on average of $70,675, whereas Electronics Engineers made $72,139.

Source: Learn.org and BLS.org