Thinking about a European vacation? Consider making a permanent move. According to a recent article in IEEE Spectrum Magazine, several large employers across Europe are looking to hire engineers this year. Author Ron Schneiderman, contributing editor to MSD's sister magazine Electronic Design, details a few of the best prospects in a recent editorial. For one, Google announced that it expects to hire more than 1,000 new employees across Europe this year, at least half of them with engineering or computer science backgrounds. In fact, a recruitment drive launched by Google in late January pulled more than 75,000 resumes for 6,000 open positions the company hopes to fill, from software engineers and product designers to computer scientists and engineering management.
Another big recruiter of technical talent in Europe is Siemens AG. In Germany alone, the company says it has more than 3,000 job vacancies, about 80% of which are for engineers. The European Aeronautics Defense and Space Company (EADS) — best known for the Airbus and as the world's largest helicopter manufacturer — lists 962 openings for engineering positions (169 for avionics specialists), another 260 positions for system and electronics support, and 127 openings in R&D. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency (ESA) is looking for engineers for its human spaceflight, robotics exploration, and photonics activities in Noordwijk, The Netherlands and Darmstadt, Germany.
Infineon Technologies AG, citing demand in automotive and industrial electronics, has more than 100 job openings for engineers and software developers, many in Villach, Austria and Warstein, Germany. The company seeks expertise in microelectronics, power electronics, embedded control, production engineering, and application engineering for target markets in automotive, industrial, and chip cards and security applications.
Several other companies, large and small alike, are also actively recruiting technical talent. The United Technologies Research Center employs about 500 people in East Hartford, Conn., Shanghai, and Berkeley, Calif., and plans to add 15 researchers with advanced degrees in 2011 to its newest facility in Ireland. Candidates will need a Ph.D. or M.S. degree in a relevant engineering or science discipline, such as power electronics, wireless sensor networks, middleware and software architectures, embedded operating systems, and decision support. Analog Devices recently posted 184 engineering openings worldwide, about 40 of which are in the UK and Ireland, while Wisconsin-based Plexus Corp., an electronic manufacturing services company, recently opened a design center in Darmstadt, Germany. The company plans to hire about 20 product development engineers and managers this year, including embedded software designers, digital hardware designers, analog designers (power and RF), and mechanical designers.