Every engineering decision begins with a problem. A new design requirement. A component going end-of-life. A performance bottleneck. A mandate to reduce cost. Understanding what triggers the research process — and where engineers go when it starts — is foundational to any marketing strategy that wants to influence design decisions before they’re already made.
EETech’s 2025 Engineering Insights Report reveals the challenges that most frequently drive engineers into active research mode. Staying on schedule leads at 46.5% for electronics engineers, followed by staying on budget at 39%. But the third-ranked challenge is the most strategically significant:
33–35% of engineers report that their team lacks the skills needed for current projects.
This isn’t a minor training issue. It’s a structural workforce problem. When an engineer realizes their team doesn’t have expertise in a new communication protocol, an unfamiliar MCU architecture, or a PLC platform they’ve never programmed, the institutional knowledge simply doesn’t exist within the organization. There’s no senior engineer down the hall who’s done this before.
So where do they turn? Communities. PLCtalk and Electronics-Lab become a de facto extended engineering department — offering implementation guidance, debugging help, and architectural advice that would otherwise require expensive consultants or weeks of trial and error. The skills gap is one of the primary engines driving community engagement.
Another finding worth highlighting: 26% of engineers cite inadequate manufacturer technical support as a pressing challenge. When a manufacturer’s support team can’t resolve an issue quickly enough — or provides generic, scripted responses — engineers route around the official channels entirely. They post the problem in a community and get faster, more practical answers from peers.
This creates both a risk and an opportunity for manufacturers. Their support failures are visible in community discussions. But so is their expertise when they contribute meaningfully. Manufacturers who actively participate in community problem-solving build credibility that no support ticket ever could.
Once research begins, the content hierarchy is clear. Datasheets (85%) and application notes (68%) are the non-negotiable foundation. But it’s critical to understand how these documents function in the community context.
A datasheet is a static document. It tells you what a component is supposed to do under specified conditions. What it doesn’t tell you is whether that component actually performs as specified in your particular environment, with your particular board layout, at your particular temperature range. That’s the gap communities fill.
Engineers take datasheets and application notes to their community and ask: “Has anyone actually used this in production? Does this reference design work as-is? What’s the real-world reliability like after two years in the field?” The datasheet starts the conversation. The community completes it.
Reference designs (57%) are particularly important in the community ecosystem. When a manufacturer publishes a strong reference design, it doesn’t just serve individual engineers — it becomes a shared resource that gets discussed, modified, and improved by the community. A reference design posted in an Electronics-Lab thread with real-world annotations and modifications from experienced engineers is exponentially more valuable than the original PDF on the manufacturer’s website.
Engineers are emphatic about what they’d like to see more of — and their preferences align perfectly with community-native content formats. In-depth technical articles (64%) and hands-on projects with practical build guides (61%) lead the list, followed by fundamentals and educational content (47%) and video tutorials (41%).
The top two requests are essentially descriptions of what already happens organically in community environments — real projects, real results, peer-annotated and battle-tested.
The demand for fundamentals and educational content (47%) ties directly back to the skills gap. Nearly half of all engineers want more educational resources, and communities are uniquely positioned to deliver them. Unlike formal training courses that require budget approval and time commitments, community-based learning happens in real time, driven by actual project needs, and available on-demand.
The research stage is where most B2B marketing efforts fail because they target the wrong moment with the wrong content. Engineers in research mode aren’t looking for product brochures or feature comparisons. They’re looking for genuine expertise that helps them solve a real problem. The brands that provide that expertise — whether through outstanding technical documentation or authentic community participation — earn a position in the engineer’s consideration set before the formal evaluation even begins.
For manufacturers, this is both a content strategy and a community strategy. Creating the kind of substantive, technically rigorous content that engineers crave — and then contributing it to community conversations where it can be discussed, annotated, and amplified by peers — is the highest-ROI content approach the data supports.
Want the full data? Download the complete report: "Where Engineers Really Make Decisions: The Engineer’s Information Journey"
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