Where hardware meets software: chips, embedded systems and the code that runs on them. Many work in software jobs that do not need the licence.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $109,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $67,000 at the lower end to about $164,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 8 years after high school, on the usual route.
$36,000 to $70,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$109,000
Lower end
$67,000
Upper end
$164,000
Job Bank's figures for computer engineers (except software engineers) across Canada (2023 to 2024) are $32.05 an hour at the low end, $52.50 median and $78.85 at the high end, about $67,000, $109,000 and $164,000 a year at 40 hours a week.
$54.95 an hour
The median in Quebec, the highest of any province
British Columbia is close behind at $54.27 and Ontario at $52.88. Newfoundland and Labrador's median is the lowest, at $44.86. Stock at large companies is paid on top and is not part of Job Bank's figures.
Roughly, all in
$36,000 to $70,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a four year engineering degree at the cheapest provincial tuition with no professional licence, which many computer engineers in software roles never get because that work is rarely treated as engineering. The high end is four years at Waterloo or Toronto, which charge at the top of the range, plus registration as an engineer in training, the professional practice exam and a first annual licence. Co operative work terms are paid and offset much of the tuition. Engineering tuition is higher than most degrees, so the floor is unavoidably high.
Engineering tuition is higher than most degrees. Waterloo and Toronto computer engineering charge at the top end, and co-op terms there are paid.
Stock or RSUs (restricted stock units, company shares you receive over time)
Standard at large tech companies and startups.
Remote or hybrid work
Normal for software roles, less so for hardware labs.
Learning budgets and conferences
Pension
Only at government, defence and utilities. Tech companies match savings instead.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A degree, then the licence, or a software job that does not need it.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Advanced Functions, Calculus, Physics and Chemistry are required. Toronto expects the low to mid 90s and Waterloo the high 80s to low 90s. Carleton and Ottawa admit from the high 70s to 80%.
Accredited computer engineering degree
4 to 5 years with co-op
A four-year Bachelor of Engineering or Applied Science at a school accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board. Circuits, digital logic, operating systems and a lot of programming.
Co-op and internships
During school
Employers care more about what you have built and where you interned than your marks. Waterloo runs six work terms.
First job
Final year
Many grads take software or firmware jobs titled developer or designer and never register with a regulator.
P.Eng (professional engineer) licence
2 to 4 years
About 4 years as an EIT (engineer-in-training), or 24 months in Quebec, plus an ethics exam. Needed to practise engineering, such as safety-critical hardware for medical, power or avionics, and to use the title engineer.
Calculus and Advanced Functions
Required.
Physics
Required. You will do a lot of circuits.
Chemistry
Required at most schools.
Computer science
Not required, but a big head start. Learn Python or C before you arrive.
Engineering is licensed in every province and territory: only a licensed engineer may practise it or use the title. Regulators such as PEO (Professional Engineers Ontario) grant the P.Eng (professional engineer), and it is needed for medical devices, power electronics and anything that can hurt someone. Much software work is not treated as engineering, so many grads work without a licence as developers. Alberta has let anyone use the title software engineer since late 2023.
Computer engineering is offered at most engineering schools. The ones employers name most:
Ontario
Waterloo (the co-op pipeline to US tech), Toronto, McMaster, Queen's, Carleton, Ottawa.
Quebec
McGill, Polytechnique Montréal, Concordia.
West
UBC (University of British Columbia), Alberta, Calgary, Manitoba.
Atlantic
Dalhousie, Memorial.
Quebec students reach university after a 2 year CEGEP (public college) diploma, so the degree takes about 4 years, and the licence comes from the OIQ (Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, the Quebec order of engineers) through its own program and exam.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Take Secondary V math in the Technical and Scientific or the Science sequence, plus Secondary V chemistry and physics. All three are required for the Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies).
Science DEC at a CEGEP
2 years
The 2 year Science program (200.B1). In English at Dawson and the other English colleges. Engineering schools look for its calculus, physics and chemistry courses and your R score (the Quebec college ranking mark).
Bachelor's in computer engineering
About 4 years
About 4 years for CEGEP graduates. Génie informatique (computer engineering) at Polytechnique Montréal in French, or Computer Engineering at McGill or Concordia in English.
Become a CPI (candidate to the engineering profession)
Before or right after graduating
Apply to the order once you have 60 university credits or your degree, $180. Joining the program costs $520 plus tax, half price within 6 months of graduating.
24 months of supervised work, then the exam
At least 2 years, at most 5
Work under an engineer you declare to the order. Paid internships done after 60 credits can count. Add 25 to 30 hours of online training ($345) and a multiple choice exam ($285, 60% to pass).
Show French, get the permit
End of the program
A Quebec high school diploma counts, even from an English school. Otherwise you pass the 3 hour exam of the Office québécois de la langue française (the Quebec French language office), which costs nothing. Then the order issues your permit.
Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies) courses
McGill and Concordia want CEGEP (public college) chemistry, the three core math courses and the physics courses. Plan your college options with that in mind.
Concordia University, in English
Computer Engineering, at least 120 credits. Concordia also teaches Software Engineering as a separate degree.
McGill University, in English
Computer Engineering, in the electrical and computer engineering department.
Polytechnique Montréal, in French
Génie informatique (computer engineering) and génie logiciel (software engineering), each 120 credits.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Chip and FPGA (field-programmable gate array) design
The scarcest hardware skill. AMD (a chip company) in Markham and Ciena in Ottawa hire for it.
Embedded and real-time systems
Cars, medical devices and aircraft all run on this. BlackBerry QNX (an operating system for cars) is built in Ottawa.
Machine learning hardware and systems
Making AI (artificial intelligence) models run fast on chips.
Cloud certifications
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud, if you go the software route.
A GitHub with real projects
Something you built and finished beats a high average.
Hackathons and robotics teams
They cost nothing, and they make a good first resume line.
Arduino, Raspberry Pi, a soldering iron
Shows you actually like hardware.
Hardware co-ops, not just software
Fewer students want them, so they are easier to get and stand out later.
Many Waterloo and Toronto computer engineering grads take jobs in California, Seattle or Texas. A work permit is easy for Canadian engineers under CUSMA (the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement). The trade-offs: US health insurance, being far from home, and visa status tied to your employer. Many come back to Toronto or Vancouver after a few years.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Hardware roles: simulating a circuit or chip design in the morning, debugging a prototype board on a lab bench with an oscilloscope in the afternoon, writing test firmware in between. Software roles look like any developer's day: a stand-up meeting, hours of coding and code review, some meetings. Firmware sits between the two, with a lot of time reading chip datasheets.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Mike Lazaridis founded Research In Motion in Waterloo in 1984, leaving his engineering degree at the University of Waterloo shortly before he would have graduated. Its BlackBerry phones once ran the world's business email.
ATI (a graphics chip maker) was founded in the Toronto area in 1985, made its home in Markham, Ontario, and grew into one of the two big names in graphics chips. AMD (a chip company) bought it in 2006.
Computer engineering is an accredited engineering degree with physics, circuits and an iron ring. Computer science is a math and theory degree in the science faculty. Both get software jobs. Only one can design the chip.
Geoffrey Hinton's lab at the University of Toronto did the work in 2012 that set off the deep learning boom. The chips that run it are what many computer engineers now design and optimize.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Engineers first, then the rest of the field. See every career in engineering.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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