We're looking for bare metal developers so basic SPI, I2C, UART knowledge is essential, but even in that realm it's surprising how many embedded devs can't work outside of an RTOS and lack basic hardware knowledge
I almost tripled my salary by moving from what the person your replied to is looking for to the web. AND it's easier. AND I can work remotely.
I don't blame them. But they'll be more and more desperate to attract people. The democratization of remote web jobs after COVID is another nail in the coffin. They pay less, 99% of the time you have to be in office. It's a losing battle.
Doubtful. If anyone is having a hell of a time finding electrical engineers or embedded developers, then by definition that means the field isn't lucrative enough for people to stay in it. That's exactly the case I've seen repeated in every post in this thread.
I had a hell of a time getting a wage close to watch SWEs make. Hence I am no longer an embedded developer.
It's a no-brainer decision.
It's easy to think that you're just competing against the other EE job offers of $120k total comp, but you're actually also competing against the software positions those EEs could get with $300k total comp.
In my opinion that is essentially almost the same problem, though depending on the university/courses followed. To be able to program bare metal one needs some knowledge of bare metal, which is what an EE has. To be able to program one also needs some programming knowledge, which most EEs have. However if you take a 'standard' software engineer then they often only have a clue about the latter.
Most of the CS grads rarely touched C, and never ASM.
Not interested though because after 9 years of sensor experience software just pays triple my best pay in those years with easier deliverables. Never again.
There was so much low-level microcontroller dev work in the past, but perhaps that has mostly moved overseas now?
I used to do that work and I am not working at present, but I’ve moved up the stack a long way since then, so my pay and working condition expectations are probably ridiculous. And I don’t want to move from New Zealand!
So I've been doing higher-level work for a long time now.
If it’s not paired with humour though, it can be quite horrible
I've a few unsubstantiated hypotheses why:
Zero Sum Game taught by boomer parents conscious that the party was already over but would be sustained inevitably with increasing ruthlessness.[1]
Intellectual Property laws started slicing and dicing knowledge that became temporarily more valuable by fencing it in.
Higher Education caught performance metrics (without much if any performance pay) and so especially elite schools but eventually the rest cottoned onto input pre selection as a way of surviving.
Society became a overt lottery particularly for low income families. This placed the easy weight of the burden of responsibility of tutors on the side of direction to easier subjects.
I believe all these factors and more began compounding exponentially with the enclosures act imposition of a requirement for a degree for work with no or marginal utility for the same.
Marketing, loans and for a particularly insidious enclosures act, the UK's "classless society" introduction of University status not only for a tsunami of new institutions (the UK will now accredit degree granting university status in only two years..) and the white washing of the vocational STEM/ Engineering focused UK Polytechnic system (making them independent degree awarding institutions enabled diversification and dilution) which multiplied the demand for least effort maximum passing grade tertiary education throughout the world ,by the turn of this century to lamentable result.
[0] turning up next week seems to have been the objective of one I spoke with, to demean the honest and intimidated.
[1] The last market play I laid on with my late cofounder was in reaction to the dotbomb. Bought military tech suppliers :-| Point being we need the new program before we are fully grown up so to pass it on. With massive shifts to younger population and the current generation of middle aged folk being capitalized by three bull cycles the last two payable like a Japanese 80's mortgage, by the grandchildren, this means now.
Edit: second footnote placed and "enclosures act" gains a act adjectivally. Edit2 for work para7 Edit3 last para payable not relatable.
I recall numerous instances in my undergraduate career where professors and the students passionate in these fields would actively persuade people who didn't get exposes to the stuff from even trying.
I remember one professor teaching an elective class on the Linux kernel and how he would try his best to scare people into dropping the class early on. We lost 25% of the class after the first lecture (and the only girl). To be fair the class was hardcore for the typical level of CS students you'd see in my school. It was painful but fun. I just wonder about the people who got scared away, maybe some of them could have really embraced the Kernel and become contributors.
To this day I see hostility among the low level crowd in my dealing with people in the industry. They think that because what they do is more complicated that writing a bog standard web app that they are special and should be left in their caves not to be disturbed.
On a different note: I feel this is playing at least a small part in hindering Linux adoption. I have dealt with the community on and off for over 10 years and just the level of negativity that comes out of that community has got to be putting off at least some people wanting to tip their toes in the water. We need to MLLGA: Make Low Level Great Again! At that starts with really welcoming normies with open arms and patience while they get over the initial hurdles.