Why the Grid’s Future Depends on Young Telecom Engineers

I've spent over a decade helping utilities design the telecom systems that keep their operations running. That was not my original plan — I went to school to become an electrical engineer — but I'm glad my career turned out this way.

When I explain my work to people outside the industry, I describe it like this: one group produces electricity, another delivers it to homes and businesses. Not long ago, if something went wrong along that delivery path, there was only one way to find out: we sent a crew in a truck to hunt it down, mile by mile.

That’s no longer the case. Today, there’s a web of meters and sensors all communicating with a central control system. Those devices are only as smart as the network behind them. When the signal drops, so does the visibility.

We're not just pushing power anymore; we're receiving information from every corner of the grid. And we’re facing a demographic challenge as the veterans who helped build this infrastructure in the past thirty years start to retire. So, if you're a young telecom engineer wondering where to make a real impact, this is the place.

What the Work Looks Like

One day, you’re working with a utility that serves a few hundred thousand people; the next day, it’s with one that covers several states. You could be routing around mountain ranges or designing coverage for a dense city center. There’s rarely a clear playbook as we build out the grid’s eyes and ears.

It's also what I enjoy so much about this field. There isn't a rigid template. You’ll need to figure things out and often, you're designing as you go. That kind of uncertainty isn't for everyone, but it's part of what makes the work interesting. 

How You Learn

Like many engineers in this field, I didn’t learn the essentials in a classroom. Real-world telecom rarely shows up in more than a few theory-heavy courses. What I’ve learned came from job sites, under pressure, while solving problems alongside other engineers. 

The most effective teams I've seen combine experience and speed. That might be a veteran who’s seen every substation design under the sun, paired with someone new who can stress-test it digitally. Both are necessary, and neither works alone.

I was lucky to come up that way myself. I worked with engineers who could walk into a cabinet and point to gear that hadn't been touched since the '90s — and explain exactly why.

That's why saying "yes" early in your career is so important. Say yes to the field visit. Say yes to the fiber run. Say yes to standing up the rack. You'll figure out what you're good at later, but only if you put yourself in situations where you can learn. The best knowledge transfers I’ve seen happen during joint site visits, when a retiring engineer walks the site and a new engineer listens and learns.

Changing of the Guard

That shift in skill sets is already proving critical in areas like network design, where younger engineers will face job challenges that play to their strengths.

They’re entering the industry already thinking in systems and layers, switching easily between radio frequency maps and the data traffic flows. Their fluency with digital tools enables them to answer big-picture questions on the spot. 

Consider, for example, the move to private LTE — carrier-grade networks that utilities own and control. Private LTE offers more bandwidth and lower latency compared to legacy systems. It also enables utilities to consolidate multiple use cases, such as AMI, SCADA, wildfire mitigation and substation automation, onto a single backbone.

Building a private LTE network requires significant investment, so it’s essential to approach it with a holistic strategy. This is where the next generation of engineers can make a real difference. Many can quickly develop skillsets using modern telecom planning software tools to aid the larger team in selecting optimal site locations, designing efficient network architectures, solving complex interoperability challenges, and performing wireless propagation modeling. Their fresh perspectives and digital fluency can help utilities get the most out of these networks from day one.

Why it Matters

This isn’t abstract work.

Technology will keep evolving and so existing systems will face even more pressure. That’s why this industry will need people who can think about the whole system, not just their piece of it.

This work isn't always easy. For a young engineer, that means showing up, listening, asking questions, sometimes in less-than-ideal conditions. But when those efforts help keep critical facilities like keeping the lights on or support systems that reduce wildfire risk, it becomes clear just how important the role is.