javanaut

Interesting! I don't disagree with you, but to jump off this...

I think there are some parallels to metro fibre networks. You have devices/pluggables with xxxG throughput. MUX/DEMUXs, ROADMs and ILAs are expensive. High cost, high margin.

But you don't make the optics. You're buying them from the same supplier as your competitors and you can't buy that company because you'll kill the market because your competitors won't buy from you and all you'd be left with is an interop problem. The second problem is that the market is small. Few outfits build these networks and they are often monopolies in their geo. There is little growth.

Commoditization is not the only problem.

I have a Mikrotik RB2011Ui. I like it but don't love it. For the price it has a lot of features. RouterOS CLI is no worse than others I've used. It has an SFP port if you need to do fibre to the kitchen. I have not been brave enough to try OpenWRT on it. RouterOS doesn't do NETCONF which I find disappointing.

If you buy something with Mikrotik RouterOS on it make sure you read a hardening guide and how to upgrade and keep and eye on the CVE list.

I don't know much about networks and haven't worked on any on-device software - I mostly work on element management systems.

Even on the high end there is a race to commodification. Router manufacturers have some similarity to server manufacturers like Dell - they get hardware and software components from 3rd parties and put them together. Your main bespoke software contribution might be device drivers and a data model.

High pay may not automatically translate into quality because there are other forces in play.

I agree. I have only developed software for multinationals and did a stint of short term freelancing for same. Titles are important within orgs but don't really translate across them, in my opinion.