If a fight for top talent is a good sign of a hot market, then the EV industry is on fire right now. The talent pool for the new industry is clearly stressed – from engineering to experienced sales and management positions.

In the past few decades, the automotive industry has seen a seismic shift from traditional mechanical systems to a world dominated by electronics, chips and software. If you go to a car show and look in the engine compartment of an older vehicle, you’ll see only a handful of connections from the cockpit. Modern vehicles, however, are built with an incredible amount of wiring harnesses and upwards of 20 million lines of code residing on board.

Combine the digital age with the ongoing revolutions in electrification, connectivity and vehicle autonomy, and you see can clearly see a convergence of several  industries: automotive, software, telecommunications and energy. As these industries merge, automotive companies of all sizes are presented with a new set of challenges. Compared to just a few years ago, there is a completely new set of skills that’s integrated into the design, production and life cycle management of vehicles.

Day after day, we continue to see many examples in the media of an auto industry in flux. Many of the world’s biggest automakers now have offices in Silicon Valley to lure top software and battery technology experts. On any given day, Tesla has about 1,000 job openings available online – many of them specialty engineering roles. And perhaps one of the most interesting signs of things to come was a recent press release from GM about its Global Propulsion Systems engineering workforce. The company said that, of more than 8,600 people working on propulsion-related products, nearly 50% are involved with alternative or electrified systems. That’s a remarkable commitment to the technology considering that the current market share for electrified systems is relatively small.

Personally, I’ve encountered countless examples of EV-related companies that are having trouble filling key positions. Many have turned to Charged for help finding employees for some of the toughest-to-fill job openings.

This has led us to launch a new career development site: ChargedEVs.com/Jobs.

Employers can now post open positions that will be promoted throughout our growing network of EV industry professionals: online, in our email newsletters and in print. Job seekers can upload their resumes to apply for jobs and be discovered by employers. We’ll also be featuring articles about career-related news from every corner of the EV industry.