Design electronic or computer equipment or instrumentation
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Producing the draft is the single thing current models are best at, and it needs no integration at all: a prompt and a couple of reference documents are enough. A person still edits it and takes responsibility for what goes out.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Drafting and content production |
| Jobs that do it | 11 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Generalist agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Drafting, Laying Out, and Specifying Technical Devices, Parts, and Equipment (4.A.3.b.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 11 occupations that perform it.
- Engineer, install, maintain, or repair security systems, programmable logic controls, or other security-related electronic systems.
- Design sensing, measuring, and recording devices, and other instrumentation used to study plant or animal life.
- Design and develop computer hardware and support peripherals, including central processing units (CPUs), support logic, microprocessors, custom integrated circuits, and printers and disk drives.
- Design electronic components, software, products, or systems for commercial, industrial, medical, military, or scientific applications.
- Integrate tags, readers, or software in radio frequency identification device (RFID) designs.
- Devise automated lab validation test stations or other test fixtures or equipment.
- Design test control apparatus or equipment or develop procedures for testing products.
- Design or develop sensors to reduce the energy or resource requirements to operate appliances, such as washing machines or dishwashing machines.
- Design electro-optical sensing or imaging systems.
- Build instrumentation or laboratory test equipment for special purposes.
- Assist engineers in the development of new products, fixtures, tools, or processes.
- Plan or develop applications or modifications for electronic properties used in components, products, or systems to improve technical performance.
- Design sensors or switches that require little or no power to operate for environmental monitoring or industrial metering applications.
- Design, integrate, or test photonics systems or components.
- Design, build, or modify fixtures used to assemble parts.
- Design gas lasers, solid state lasers, infrared, or other light emitting or light sensitive devices.
- Develop optical or imaging systems, such as optical imaging products, optical components, image processes, signal process technologies, or optical systems.
- Design photonics products, such as light sources, displays, or photovoltaics, to achieve increased energy efficiency.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for drafting and content production, and what it costs.
Drafting needs no tools, no integration and no platform. One $20 assistant and two reference documents beat any agent builder here, and every extra thing in this stack is cost with nothing behind it.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Generalist agents
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
11 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Agricultural Engineers
- Automotive Engineering Technicians
- Computer Hardware Engineers
- Electronics Engineers, Except Computer
- Mechanical Engineers
- Microsystems Engineers
- Photonics Engineers
- Photonics Technicians
- Radio Frequency Identification Device Specialists
- Security Management Specialists
- Validation Engineers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Design electrical or electronic systems or equipment”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Design electromechanical equipment or systems | 9 |
| Design electrical equipment or systems | 5 |
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.