The main task of an electronics design engineer is finding ways to develop the product a customer wants to have. There is way more behind the process of bringing an idea to life than just creating a schematic, creating a layout from that and selling the product afterwards.

A big bunch of questions need to be answered first, including, but absolutely not exclusively:

1. How is the user supposed to interface with it?
   • Does it need a display, does it needs buttons?
     • What kind of buttons does it need? 
     • Does it need a rotary knob?
       • Potentiometer or incremental encoder?
     • Which kind of display is the best choice for the purpose? LED, LCD, OLED, VFD, or something completely different?
   • Does it need an external interface?
     • Which one? USB, RS232, GPIB, Ethernet, Bluetooth, WiFi...?
   • Is there any sort of feedback needed?
     • Beeper?
     • Control lights?
2. What should it do?
   • Does it need to connect to external devices?
     • How?
   • What should the internal function be?
     • Is it possible to do that and still comply to normative regulations?
     • Which regulations apply?
       • How can the device be built to comply to those regulations?
   • Is it neccessary to take user errors into account or will it only be used by trained personel?
3. Is there a predefined case where this thing should fit into?
   • What are the size constraints?
     • Is it even possible to build it into that case?
       • What needs to be changed to make it possible?
4. Which documentation is needed?
   • Revision history
   • Schematics
     • Calculations to make the circuit behave as it is supposed to be
   • Layout
     • Documentation about critical layout aspects
   • Gerber Files
   • Assembling Documentation
   • Code/Firmware

and so on. The design process of a product is much more than just creating a schematic from an idea. And that is what an electronics design engineer is neccessary for - to find all those little details that could potentially be a problem and to find solutions to make your idea become reality.

Since I take intellectual ownership serious: The Photo was made by Green Chameleon on Unsplash.