Open any electronic device – a phone charger, a TV remote, a car's control unit, a medical monitor – and you will find a green or blue board covered with tiny components and thin copper tracks. That is a printed circuit board, or PCB. Someone had to decide where every part sits and how every track runs. That person is a PCB designer.
PCB design is a specialised, practical career that blends electronics knowledge with careful layout work. It suits ECE, EEE and E&I students who like precision and want to see their designs turn into real hardware. This guide explains the work, the skills and the path into it.
Key takeaways
- PCB designers turn circuit schematics into boards that can be manufactured.
- The workflow runs from schematic and simulation to layout and Gerber output.
- Strong basic electronics and datasheet reading are essential foundations.
- Hands-on fabrication practice helps you design boards that are easier to build.
- PCB design combines well with embedded systems for broader career options.
What a PCB designer does
A PCB designer takes a circuit – usually drawn as a schematic by an electronics engineer, or by the designer themselves – and turns it into a physical board layout that can be manufactured. That means choosing or creating the correct footprint for every component, placing parts sensibly on the board, routing copper connections between them and making sure the design follows electrical, mechanical and manufacturing rules.
The job does not end with a nice-looking layout. The designer must check that tracks are wide enough for the current, spacing is enough to avoid shorts, sensitive signals are kept away from noisy ones and the board fits inside its enclosure with connectors in the right places. Finally, the designer produces manufacturing files – Gerber files, drill files and assembly drawings – that a fabrication house uses to make the board.
It is detailed work, and mistakes are costly: a single wrong footprint can mean a whole batch of boards has to be scrapped. Designers who are careful and methodical are highly valued.
The PCB design workflow, step by step
Most professional PCB work follows the same flow, whatever the software. Understanding it end to end is the first thing employers look for.
In OrCAD, for example, schematics are drawn in OrCAD Capture, circuits can be simulated in PSpice, and the board is laid out in the OrCAD PCB Editor. A netlist passes the connections from the schematic to the layout, so the two always stay in step.
| Stage | What happens | Key skill |
|---|---|---|
| Schematic capture | Place parts, connect them, add power and ground symbols, buses and net names | Reading and drawing clean circuit diagrams |
| Simulation | Check circuit behaviour with bias point, transient, DC sweep, AC sweep and other analyses | Understanding circuit response before hardware is built |
| Validation | Annotate parts, run design rules check, generate bill of materials and netlist | Catching errors early |
| Footprints and padstacks | Create or verify pad shapes and package symbols from datasheet dimensions | Accuracy with datasheet measurements |
| Placement | Draw the board outline, set keep-in areas and place components | Balancing electrical, thermal and mechanical needs |
| Routing | Route tracks manually or with auto-routing under set constraints; add copper pours and vias | Using constraints and design rules well |
| Manufacturing output | Generate Gerber artwork, drill files and PDF documentation | Producing files a fabricator can use without questions |
Skills you need to build
Strong basic electronics is essential. You should understand resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, transistors, op-amps, voltage regulators and common ICs, and be able to read a datasheet confidently. Without this, layout becomes guesswork.
On the software side, you need to be fluent with schematic capture, part libraries, footprint creation, placement, routing and constraint management. Knowing how to set physical and spacing constraints, check design status and clear DRC errors is a core daily task. As boards become more complex, you also need to understand multilayer stack-ups, plane layers and different via types – through, blind and buried.
Finally, understand how boards are actually made. Knowing what a fabricator can and cannot produce saves time and money, and makes your designs easier to build.
- Read component datasheets and extract pin details and package dimensions.
- Build accurate part libraries and footprints, and check them twice.
- Place components with signal flow, heat and connectors in mind.
- Route power, ground and sensitive signals thoughtfully, not just to connect them.
- Run design rule checks and fix every error before release.
- Produce clean Gerber, drill and documentation files.
Hands-on fabrication makes you a better designer
Designing on screen is only half the picture. Making a simple board yourself teaches lessons that software alone cannot. In a practical fabrication exercise, you test the circuit on a breadboard, check it with a multimeter, transfer the layout to copper-clad board, etch it with ferric chloride, drill holes and then mount and solder the components.
Once you have struggled with a track that was too thin to etch cleanly or a pad too small to solder, you design differently. This practical understanding is useful in interviews and shows that you think about how a board will be made, not just how it looks.
Where PCB designers work
PCB design skills are used by electronics product companies, electronics manufacturing services (EMS) firms, automotive electronics suppliers, industrial automation and power electronics makers, telecom and networking equipment companies, medical device firms and defence and aerospace electronics units. Engineering design services companies also have PCB teams that work on projects for global clients.
The Chennai–Sriperumbudur belt, Hosur and Bengaluru have a significant electronics manufacturing and design presence, and all are within reach of Vellore. Growing interest in electric vehicles, smart devices and local electronics manufacturing is adding to the need for skilled board designers.
Career path and indicative salaries
Freshers often start as a PCB Layout Designer, Junior PCB Design Engineer, Schematic or CAD Engineer, or Hardware Design Trainee. Early work involves building libraries and footprints, making changes to existing designs, routing simpler boards and preparing documentation. With experience, you move to complex multilayer boards, high-speed and power designs, and eventually lead design reviews or a hardware team.
As an indicative guide for 2025–26, fresher PCB designers commonly start around ₹2.4–4 LPA. With three to five years of experience, ₹4.5–8 LPA is common, and senior designers handling complex boards can earn more. These figures vary by company, city, skills and experience.
PCB design also pairs well with embedded systems. Engineers who can design a board and write the firmware that runs on it are especially useful in small product teams.
How to get started
Begin by revising your basic electronics and practising datasheet reading. Then learn a professional tool step by step: schematic capture first, then simulation, then layout. Build a few complete projects – a regulated power supply, a microcontroller board with an LCD and sensors, or a small motor driver – from schematic to Gerber files. Keep your project files, screenshots and 3D views in a simple portfolio to show employers.
Livewire's OrCAD PCB Design training covers OrCAD Capture, PSpice and the OrCAD PCB Editor, including padstacks, footprints, placement, routing, constraints, multilayer design, 3D viewing, Gerber output and hands-on PCB fabrication. It runs at the Katpadi, Vellore and Ranipet centres operated by CareerKraft, in classroom, online or hybrid mode depending on trainer availability, with placement support that includes resume help, mock interviews and job leads.