> it's getting harder and harder to find low-level work

That doesn't match with my (current job seeking) experience at all, the embedded market is really healthy at the moment. What sort of keywords are you searching on?

Upverter has a nicer schematic editor and more social features, but doesn't have any PCB layout capabilities (at this time, at least.)

It looks like these are two layer boards, meaning you can route traces either on the top (red line) or the bottom (blue line) of the board.

have read that prototyping on breadboard doesn't work well.

That's definitely not my experience. Using a solderless breadboard may add more noise, but it's much easier to assemble and correct mistakes.

> Using a solderless breadboard may add more noise, but it's much easier to assemble and correct mistakes.

Noise isn't usually the major problem with breadboards, though it is an issue. The much more troubling issue and what makes breadboards useless for a large number of circuits are the parasitics from the connections. The stray capacitance and inductance can cause large problems and even outright oscillation of even relatively low frequency circuits.

Good point, thanks for the correction. I recalled assembling RF and other analog circuits using breadboards in labs, but those were likely too low frequency to run into those problems.

This is the circuit I was trying to build (http://www.lucidscience.com/pro-basic%20spy%20transmitter-5....). I've always managed to breadboard circuits of this size without an issue so I just jumped into soldering components onto the PCB. It was a total disaster and took my confidence down a few notches :(

I must say, going from a novice who can make LEDs blink or hook together a few ICs to op-amps and RF circuits is turning out to be a big jump! If anyone has tips, those would be much appreciated.

My tip to you would be to start fixing broken electronics, preferably stuff from the 80's (people will throw those away so you can get them pretty much for free). The parts are cheap and the circuits are usually fairly easy to follow because most or all of it will be discrete components.

You will learn a ton from this and you'll gain good insight into how other circuits work. This is the hardware guy equivalent of reading other peoples code.

It just depends on what you are prototyping. Some things will run no problem on a breadboard, some will give you no end of misery.

Complicated circuits, circuits with components only available in SMT packages, high-speed circuits, circuits sensitive to noise (sensors)- these are a few examples of devices you may wish to prototype on something other than breadboard.