I'm very interested in doing ROTC in college and wanted to know the types fo jobs available afterward. I plan on pursuing electrical engineering as a major and wanted to know if I'd be able to do actual engineering things or if it would just be project management. Specifically, does the air Force have robotics engineers?
Does the Air Force have robotics engineers?
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Short answer -yes, but...
If you want a guarantee that you will actually get to do engineering work, then becoming an Air Force officer is probably not the right route. That being said, there is an engineering career field, namely 62EX - a developmental engineer (https://www.thebalancecareers.com/us-air-force-developmental-engineer-job-3356681). This career field has several specialty shred outs including electrical engineer. Early in your career, you can usually get an assignment that will involve some actual engineering (and often can be a GREAT experience right out of undergrad) but it is also possible to get stuck in a more programmatic role. This career field is technically "acquisitions" and what you actually do day to day will depend largely on where you are assigned and how aggressively you insert yourself into the technical work. You also can likely get an assignment to AFIT to go get a master's in the early years after you commission - which is an awesome opportunity.
I am a 61D - which is scientist/physicist as opposed to engineering, but a lot of our assignments are largely similar. I have spent nearly my whole 8 years so far either doing actual lab work (setting up equipment, sitting in a trailer pressing buttons for a test, building a fiber laser setup for a test etc.), in school (the Air Force sent me full time to go get a PhD), or both leading the effort programmatically AND doing a significant portion of the technical work myself (my current assignment). This is an unusual situation, but I have made career choices based on assignments that I found interesting and that had the best chance of allowing me to use my technical skills, rather than what would look best on my promotion record. This will likely come around to bite me in the nearish future, but it is a conscious choice that I made and am continuing to make. The Air Force seems to be shifting to valuing significant technical expertise more than they have in the past, so they may keep me around, but I accepted the potential career consequences with the path I chose.
Happy to discuss more if you would like (PM me if you want) - I have probably had one of the more technical careers in the Air Force and can speak to the range of possible paths you might end up on.
If you want a guarantee that you will actually get to do engineering work, then becoming an Air Force officer is probably not the right route. That being said, there is an engineering career field, namely 62EX - a developmental engineer (https://www.thebalancecareers.com/us-air-force-developmental-engineer-job-3356681). This career field has several specialty shred outs including electrical engineer. Early in your career, you can usually get an assignment that will involve some actual engineering (and often can be a GREAT experience right out of undergrad) but it is also possible to get stuck in a more programmatic role. This career field is technically "acquisitions" and what you actually do day to day will depend largely on where you are assigned and how aggressively you insert yourself into the technical work. You also can likely get an assignment to AFIT to go get a master's in the early years after you commission - which is an awesome opportunity.
I am a 61D - which is scientist/physicist as opposed to engineering, but a lot of our assignments are largely similar. I have spent nearly my whole 8 years so far either doing actual lab work (setting up equipment, sitting in a trailer pressing buttons for a test, building a fiber laser setup for a test etc.), in school (the Air Force sent me full time to go get a PhD), or both leading the effort programmatically AND doing a significant portion of the technical work myself (my current assignment). This is an unusual situation, but I have made career choices based on assignments that I found interesting and that had the best chance of allowing me to use my technical skills, rather than what would look best on my promotion record. This will likely come around to bite me in the nearish future, but it is a conscious choice that I made and am continuing to make. The Air Force seems to be shifting to valuing significant technical expertise more than they have in the past, so they may keep me around, but I accepted the potential career consequences with the path I chose.
Happy to discuss more if you would like (PM me if you want) - I have probably had one of the more technical careers in the Air Force and can speak to the range of possible paths you might end up on.