Post: #1

Anyone working in the robotics/automation sector?

Lots of threads about sex-bots, very few about developing automation. It seems that every industry is becoming increasingly robot-ized, from McDonald's all the way to Cadillac.

Is it concentrated in Sillicon Valley? Are there a bunch of computer nerds running the game? Startups?

Post: #2

Yes, I've trained in Mechatronics (Mechanical control by electronics).

It's an interesting field because it combines two completely different types of person - computer science and mechanics.

Very often the computer science guys who are genius at writing code and algorithms have absolutely no idea about how mechanical components operate.
The guys who are very practical, with hands on skills and a brain that understand how the physical world works find it impossible to try and pickup the computer coding side of things.

Startups are not so common for this type of thing. The research and development is done from within existing companies. Industrial automation for factories doesn't really have any breakthroughs. The technology just keeps slowly progressing. However there have been some startups that have done really well in the automotive sector.

There is going to be an entire industry built around electric vehicles in the very near future. Self driving cars are 100% going to happen. Also I think DC power in homes will also see another whole industry built. The same thing is happening with flying things like radio controlled drones. Drones will deliver pizza and parcels.

20 years from now new houses will have a roof made of solar panels, there will be a big battery bank of some description in the home which is also linked to your next door neighbor. When you get home from work you plug in your electric car, turn on the TV, boil the jug and jump in the shower. If your neighbors didn't drive anywhere that day and there wasn't much sun it might pull some charge from your neighbors car to boil your jug which you pay for instantly in bitcoin. At night the system tops up the battery bank through the national grid at off peak power prices if it has to. If you have excess power from a sunny day you put it back into the national grid and get paid for it.

That sort of thing requires work in the form of android apps that run your fridge to a new type of electrician that is allowed to work with high voltage DC equipment (more dangerous than normal AC power).

You won't have any trouble finding a job with a qualification in this field.

Post: #3

Can't speak to the specifics of the job but I can say that your economic prospects would be top notch.....mostly because it actually is now necessary to automate business processes, but also it doesn't hurt that trying to "leverage automation systems synergies" or some such babble is one of the most groupthink friendly solutions out there for the next crop of business managers.