Projects
Pick one project you can defend line by line, aim it at what the company makes, and finish it with a measured number. Write down what broke and how you fixed it. A finished build is the experience you can point to before your first internship.
Why projects count
Section titled “Why projects count”The BLS says employers of electrical engineers value internships and co-op programs (opens in a new tab). In NACE's Job Outlook 2026 survey, an internship with the employer and one in its industry were the top two tiebreakers between equal candidates (opens in a new tab).
Projects have landed jobs on their own. One student on a thread about projects says their projects got them a job at Apple (opens in a new tab). They built an oscilloscope on an STM32 board, both the hardware and the software, with 9 percent error. They also built an MCU in Vivado that ran a Mario game.
The project also decides what the interview asks about. One student who landed an NVIDIA internship said the interviewers mostly asked about a custom OS and an FSAE role (opens in a new tab). The questions were about how they built it and what they did.
Pick one you can defend
Section titled “Pick one you can defend”One commenter built a DC-DC converter that made 180 to 250 V from a 12 V battery (opens in a new tab) and wrote about 80 pages on it. They studied electrical engineering technology, a different degree from electrical engineering. Reviewers wanted firm engineering principles and a careful document. They suggested a programmable electronic load as a build you can explain the same way. You must be able to say why you picked the parts, why the board is laid out that way, and how the circuit works.
Build a small version of what the company makes. One student built an Arduino plant monitor (opens in a new tab) with a few LEDs and basic conditional logic. The student says it led to a 6-month engineering internship at a defense company that makes sonobuoys. A plant monitor is not a military device, but the circuit ideas carried over. The student made the monitor wireless later, after the search was over.
One commenter on a resume roast said HR sees the same basic Arduino builds about 100 times a day (opens in a new tab). That commenter had no personal projects and still got internships and job offers. On the converter thread, they said recruiters ignore those projects (opens in a new tab) and count team competitions such as Formula SAE and undergraduate research instead.
A third-year EE student asked what to learn, build, and put in an embedded portfolio (opens in a new tab). Another person understands electronics and has written embedded code, but cannot join the two into a design that works (opens in a new tab). A new graduate asked how to stand out for the work they want (opens in a new tab). The builds above answer all three, so skip a second copied kit. A seat on a design team or in a lab counts too, and the teams and undergraduate research section on the hardware page covers both.
Present it
Section titled “Present it”A finished project needs three things a reviewer can check:
- A write-up. The plant-monitor student wrote down the problems, how they bought the parts, the calculations, and the fixes. They sent that with the resume, or sent a video of the build working.
- A resume line with a measured number. Alex's converter line reads "Designed a [X] W CubeSat buck converter in KiCad and LTspice, measured at [X]% efficiency on an electronic load."
- A place to see it. For code, that is a GitHub repository with a README.
The section on your projects, line by line on the how to interview page has the questions to answer before the interview.
Software or hardware
Section titled “Software or hardware”Pick the kind that matches the job you want, or combine them. Software is cheaper to start. A software project needs a computer and an internet connection (opens in a new tab). The section on starting on a student budget on the hardware page covers the free routes.
Software and hardware projects
| Software | Hardware | |
|---|---|---|
| What you need | A computer and an internet connection | Instruments, parts, breadboards, and a computer for embedded work |
| Free ways to start | cocotb, Verilator, and EDA Playground | The lab scope, KiCad, and Wokwi |
| What a reviewer checks | A repository with a README, tests, and a measured result | A measured number from the bench, a photo, and a write-up |
| Alex's example | Python and PyVISA scope capture: test time from [X] to [Y] minutes | Synchronous buck converter: peak efficiency from [W]% to [X]% |
- The software page covers firmware, test automation and lab scripts, FPGA and HDL, and GitHub.
- The hardware page covers bench skills, builds on a student budget, design teams, research, and technician roles.
- The career paths page covers embedded, power, analog, RF, and controls work, with titles, projects, and employers for each.
For embedded work, Interrupt's embedded systems roadmap lays out a learning path (opens in a new tab), with curated resources on GitHub.
The steps in order
Section titled “The steps in order”One project, start to finish
Four steps in order. One, pick one build you can defend: say why you picked the parts, why the board is laid out that way, and how the circuit works. Two, aim it at what the company makes: build a small version and skip a second copied kit. Three, finish with a measured number and put it on the resume line. Four, write down what broke and how you fixed it, or record a video of the build working.
Content by eeprep contributors (opens in a new tab), licensed CC BY 4.0 (opens in a new tab). Code licensed MIT (opens in a new tab). Source is in the eeprep (opens in a new tab), resume-generator (opens in a new tab), and company-lists (opens in a new tab) repositories.