I'm trying to find a local (nyc) electrical engineer, or electrical engineering company to help me make a small device that involves cell phones and bluetooth - at least I think it will involve bluetooth.
My questions are simple:
Are there any sites devoted to contract jobs for electrical engineers? How can I find small local EE companies that might be able to help me? How can I best judge the quality of an EE?
Thanks!
I don't know of a good site devoted to contract jobs for EEs.
You might try talking to folks at NYC Resistor. They're a hacker collective, not an EE company, but they're in Brooklyn and might know local EEs.
You might also ask in the Adafruit forums. Adafruit is based in New York. While the customers are from all over the place, you might find more New Yorkers than here. (Chiphacker seems to have a lot of folks from Australia and the UK.)
Here are a few examples of folks who could probably do the job (but they're in California):
You might also want to think about whether you have the resources to hire an electrical engineer to work for you. Very few individuals do. The going rate for consulting engineers in New York is probably above $100/hour, and developing a real product takes at least hundreds of hours.
All of these questions are hard, actually.
As far as judging the quality of an EE when you're not an EE: You will have to be able to communicate well throughout the project, so even if you don't speak that much Electrish, you should try to ask questions in their language. The other way round, EEs who talk so much Electrish that it sounds like they know all and you are dumb, well, they may be bright, but they will not solve your problem. You will have to spend some hours in your first meeting and if you don't even get the least idea about what tricks they are going to use to get your requirements running, you should not sign any contracts.
Some side-notes: I'm not from NYC and I don't know about an online list, but for jobs as special as this one, It may be the case that no yellow pages (or the like) are available, no matter if you're from Europe or from NYC. My company often arranges contracts with smaller companies for R&D tasks, and it really is very difficult to find good partners. Often, the less shiny and power-pointy ones are the good ones. Once you found a shop who looks like they might be able to help, prepare some good questions concerning your project and try to ask like you're the employer in a job interview without being impolite.
Good contract developers are real treasures. Word of mouth might be the only source towards finding them.
LinkedIn would be a place to start. Perhaps a friend of a contact knows one.
I'm a good (I hope) electrical engineer local to NYC, but that doesn't mean I know anything about Bluetooth. When judging the quality of the engineer, you need to ask questions related specifically to what you want them to do. There are lots of different sub-fields, and they can be highly specialized. Do you want them to develop Bluetooth hardware, or just interface pre-existing Bluetooth hardware to something else?
You might just want to try Craigslist (Arch / Engineering). I think you have to pay to put a job ad on there, though.
Also there are hardware sections on sites like rentacoder (now called vworker?), which seems appropriate for a single small project.
adafruit now have a moderated jobs board. Lots of EEs and other people capable of your requirements would most likely have a look there. Even I got a job from it.
Don't limit yourself to only local EE's because it will greatly reduce your choices.
I'm an EE that designs electronics (including Bluetooth) for entrepreneurs and small companies around the U.S. and UK. None of my clients are local, nor do they need to be.
As others have explained not all EE's are the same and it is a huge field of study. For example, I would bet that very few EE's have experience designing Bluetooth. So be sure to hire one with the exact skills you need.
I recently wrote an article on this very subject that you may find helpful:
http://teelengineering.com/contracting-the-right-electrical-engineer-for-your-project
"Horses for courses"........Different EEs are better for different types of jobs.
It all depends on the project in question I suppose....For instance I do commission based work for people that have there own in-house EEs - because I have a different skill set that centers around EEing for audio and sound.
Also Zebonaut's point about communication is really important - You need to be able to communicate your ideas well, so it helps if you see eye-to-eye with your EE.
The answers listed here all sound good. Judging from your budget, you may be able to recruit a college student (who's also a hacker) in the subject area that you need expertise in. You may need an engineering friend to help you with the recruiting though for filters.
