Machine vision – where the jobs are

If you live in the US you’ll be well aware that there don’t seem to be enough jobs to go around. I believe things are similar in Europe ‘though I’m afraid to say I’m less well informed about South America and Europe. But one area that seems awash with jobs is machine vision. Everywhere I look I see companies seeking vision engineers, so this seems like a good time to explore where to look and the skills that are needed.

The first thing to say is that machine vision employment can be split into two broad categories. There are the doers, those who develop and implement working vision systems, principally for inspection, and then there are the thinkers. This group works more in the realm of theoretical and applied research, addressing topics more in the field of image processing – algorithm development, video analytics and so on.

So which category is doing all the hiring?

Well it seems the answer is both. If you go on to LinkedIn and search for machine vision jobs you’ll find a wide range of work, from hands-on integration to really blue sky/long grass, dreamy stuff. As you might expect, the latter tends to be located on the West Coast while the former is more evenly distributed across the country. That said, my impression is that Atlanta and Kansas City, MO seem to be hubs for machine vision integration. Atlanta might be a result of the presence of DVT back in the ‘90’s but Kansas City I’m at a loss to explain.

Now obviously I’m writing from a US perspective, so I’d like to hear back from you. Where do you see machine vision jobs, and where should readers go to look for them? Use the ‘Comment’ function or just send me an email.