Essential Programming Skills for Electronic Engineers: AVR, Robotics, FPGA, OOP, STL?

I want to know what level of programming is necessary for an Electronic Engineer. I mean classes, object-oriented, linked lists,templates, stl and etc that are specialty for software engineering are necessary for an electronic engineer to be familiar or work with them? We have been learnt some elementary features of programming at college (all of chapters 1 to 8 &17 & 20 of dietel dietel book) but I'm not sure those are enough for an electronic engineer.I want become more familiar with AVR, Robotics, and FPGA. I've just done very simple projects by AVR and robotics that didn't need so advanced programming. And all I have done so far have been in analog area, and I want to move somewhat to digital area however I'm not interested in digital area and programming and I'm so interested in analog but I think it is necessary to learn more about them.

It depends on your specific job goals. Using Indeed.com and entering ELECTRICAL ENGINEER shows the wide variety of electrical engineering jobs and what software skills are desirable. For example, for RF design the ability to program is not often a requirement but the ability to use RF design software is.

Having programming skills can significantly increase the jobs you qualify for. For example, RF Test Engineer requires programming skills and can be an entry to someone who wants to be an RF Design Engineer. The possible downside of entering this way is that one can find it difficult to move beyond Test Engineer.