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Unless somebody is actually paying you to use tools or your brain for engineering then employers will not consider it as experience. It's one of those catch 22 situations.
The *only* 'work at home' deal I heard about was when some one started a small manufacturing biz in his garage - getting a small contract to build relatively simple circuits.
You may not consider that 'engineering' - but was in fact manufacturing engineering building electronic circuit boards. He went on to build a multi-million dollar enterprise in relatively short period of time.
But to do traditional 'electronic engineering' I would think those lucky enough to do that at home have either already built a level of trust with their employer (read: lots of experience) - or has a handful of clients who dont mind meeting at someones home or coffee shops to talk business.
Keep in mind - most engineers work in a team. Working with techs to build their designs, develop ways to manufacture, lower costs, work with QC persons to verify operating condtions wont be a problem.. etc. etc.
So Id say, these jobs are short in supply, and *who* wouldn't like to work at home.?? (in other word, the limited opportunities are in high demand by a relatively large group of people, given the fuel costs these days)
If you are good engineer you may do consulting job at home. You may start from doing design with software tools. Later you will be able to establish your own lab and even machine shop. The most difficult part is to find reliable clients.
It depends on your engineering field. If you are mechanical engineer you need Solid Works or ProEngineer. If you are electronic engineer you need program like OrCAD which allow you to use schematic capture, SPICE simulator and layout tools. If you are RF engineer you need program like LINC2, Genesys, ADS and so on. The main idea is to have the tools that allow you to do what you can do and what your clients need. Very helpful to have at least one good PCB designer who will do layout for you. Clients very like when consultant is able to do as mach as it possible and solve majority of client's problems. This is the main reason to hire a consultant.
Actually there are a lot of affordable programs and it is possible to have them legally. For example I bought electronic design program Circuit Maker just for about $600, excellent RF simulator LINC2 for about $400, MathCAD for about $300, mechanical program TurboCAD for $50. Tools are really affordable and can help you a lot.
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