The Dallas Morning News reported U.S. Firms Struggle to Fill Engineering Positions

Lockheed Martin Corp. advertised 300 engineering positions in specialties ranging from aeronautics to manufacturing. Texas Instruments had 400 U.S. openings, 380 of them for engineers.

Engineers are in enormous demand nationwide. A recent study by the Texas Education Commission found that North Texas alone probably would require at least 10,000 more engineers by 2008, and there still aren't enough students in the pipeline to satisfy the need.

Engineering embodies a number of disciplines -- from computer and systems to electrical, civil and biomedical -- and opportunities are abundant across the board. Pure tech companies are only the tip of the iceberg, experts say.

"Hot areas for engineers are within the government and defense," said Phillip Brown, director of Systems Engineering Associates and an expert on international systems engineering issues. "The telecommunications industry and the chip industry in California are down right now but only temporarily."

Three areas within the information technology industry are expanding, according to a semi-annual hot jobs report from RHI Consulting: networking, Internet/intranet development and data/database management. Many of the jobs in those areas are quasi-engineering positions.