5G Jobs Aplenty – Cisco, Intel, Others Seek Candidates

Will the deployment of 5G-based wireless services for businesses and consumers translate into large and sustained job growth for the U.S. workforce? The president and FCC chairman, among others, are betting heavily on it, directing spectrum and seed funds to the nascent 5G deployment effort.

Economic growth

The wireless industry supports over 4.7 million jobs and contributes about $475 billion a year to the U.S. economy, according to a recent Accenture report cited by the CTIA.

U.S. wireless companies have started to invest an estimated $275 billion into building 5G networks, an ongoing effort that the CTIA believes will create three million jobs and boost the gross domestic product by $500 billion, according to a second Accenture study. The CTIA estimates that one out of every 100 Americans “will benefit from a new 5G job.”

Where the jobs are

It’s no surprise that much of the job creation is coming from wireless operators and their infrastructure vendors. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile are among those hiring 5G talent.

Ericsson, Cisco, Nokia, Spectrum, and Case Systems are also hiring to help provide their service provider customers the pieces needed to plan, test, manage, and drive 5G deployments. The below are excerpts from actual postings.

From the top

Cisco posted the position of 5G Mobile Technology Director in May.

The winning candidate will work directly with key customers to communicate Cisco's Mobile Core architecture and vision towards 5G, cloud-native architectures, and 5G Core access convergence. This includes a knowledge of the E2E mobile core solution, including EPC, PCRF, DRA, and other mobile core functions.

Responsibilities: The candidate will act as an architectural liaison between the customer and account teams, 5G standards teams, and internal business unit product management and engineering organizations. The position requires a balance of knowledge in 4G/5G mobile core architecture functions, Cloud Native technologies, and strong presentation skills.

Minimum Qualifications: Long history of working with Tier 1 service providers and hands-on knowledge of deployment and lifecycle challenges, expert knowledge in 3GPP 4G/5G standards and procedures and the network functions at a stage 2 and stage 3 level.

Cisco wants candidates to be able to clearly articulate the different 5G architectures being proposed in 5G and the new features being introduced in this next generation. Experience with Segment Routing, Data Center SDN overlays, transport technologies, and IP routing is a major plus.

Consumer focus

In the consumer device sector, Apple is in the mix for 5G talent, posting openings for a Wireless System Engineer, a cellular RF System Architect and a Cellular Software Development Engineer, for starters. Rival Samsung Electronics is shopping for a Senior Manager of Channel Marketing for Mobile Computing.

An enterprise view

How does Verizon see the needs of businesses? You can get a rough idea from the company’s posting for a Senior Manager, 5G Technology Solutions for Enterprise.

Responsibilities: He or she will be leading a team of technology experts responsible for designing and implementing mobile edge/5G technical prototype solutions for key enterprises/verticals, according to the posting. You will engage with our customers’ technical leaders (director, VP and higher levels), to understand their technical needs, deliver technology presentations on 5G at an executive level, and design use cases to be tested.

The Senior Manager will lead a team of solution architects to conceive and execute on mobile edge/5G solutions for enterprises, with a focus on strategic software and architecture development for key enterprise verticals.

Requirements: Candidates must have experience with innovative, cutting-edge technologies, such as AR/VR, IoT, drones self-driving cars, etc., according to the job posting.

Experience: Time building technology architectures or technology products is required as is solid experience in product and application development (B2B or B2B2C). Wireless network experience, ten or more years of experience leading large teams and/or projects, and an understanding of Wi-Fi and wireless Radio Access Network (RAN) technology are all requested.

Education: A Bachelor's degree or four or more years of work experience are required as are six or more years of relevant work experience. It’s even better if you have a BSEE Electrical/Computer Engineering or MSEE.

Compensation: The posting only mentioned "great pay" without specifics.

5G included

It’s not unusual for advanced technology definition positions to cover more than 5G, as it the case with this Intel posting.

Media, AI/Machine learning and 5G wireless architect

Join Intel's Next Generation & Standards (NGS) Group. It’s a global team of engineers and technologists from diverse industry backgrounds, working together to realize a world of connected computing.

Intel’s NGS team is chartered with developing advanced prototypes of various technologies to deliver innovative and state of the art wireless experiences into the market within the Internet of Things, 5G Next-Generation Wearable and IoT solutions and other wireless areas.

Roles and responsibilities: Research new technologies and analyze competition technologies to solve applied problems in various disciplines, including immersive media (including AR and VR), Data Analytics, AI/Machine Learning, and 5G wireless.

Right here, right now

Let your search for 5G-related jobs begin.