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This year, I left my electrical engineering (EE) studies for software engineering. I had a lot of personal experience with coding before going in EE and I wonde

This year, I left my electrical engineering (EE) studies for software engineering. I had a lot of personal experience with coding before going in EE and I wondered if some hardware would make my life more interesting. After 1.25 years, I realized that I was spending all my life in a lab with no windows, to the smell of toxic soldering fumes, fighting against extremely annoying software (altium & other proprietary overpriced pieces of technical debt). Also, I realized whatever I created needed a lot of work for an unsatisfying outcome (A sound amplifier is less satisfying than some webgl stuff that moves [but it requires a lot more work]). The nice feeling of being powerful when writing software & the instant compiler/interpreter feedback is what I missed the most. At least, when you are a software engineer, you have more odds of finding a nice workplace, with windows and software you can choose. The part I miss from electrical engineering is the physics part (But we were only skimming this part anyway). Finally, circuits are a thousand times less satisfying to me than code. I've seen people for whom it was the opposite. They did not get programming at all, but they were designing circuits at the speed of light with an intuition that I did not have.

madengr 10y ago
I like Altium and solder fumes.
- antoineMoPa 10y ago
  I think the people who coded Altium liked solder fumes... A bit too much.
fake-name 10y ago
If you think Altium is a "overpriced piece of technical debt", HOLY SHIT you should try anything it competes with. It's sooo much nicer then anything else out there in the EDA market. At my work they use Proteus, and it's horrible. Also, solder fumes aren't toxic!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- antoineMoPa 10y ago
  I only tried Altium in "depth" (And some open source shallowly). It is surprising to me that competing products are even worse.
- cushychicken 10y ago
  If you think Altium is bad, you've never used Orcad. If you think Orcad is good, you've never used Eagle.
  - bass_case 10y ago
    If you think eagle is good, you've never used KiCad.
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      Seriously, I love KiCAD. So much better than eagle, and open source.
    - cushychicken 10y ago
      I'd love a recommendation for a good KiCad intro tutorial. I tried to just hack through learning it once and I couldn't pick it up. Any suggestions?
      - dan1234 10y ago
        I used a YouTube playlist[0] to get the basics down, goes from installing KiCad through to soldering a finished board. [0]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2022BX6Eso532xqrUxDT1u2p4VVsg-q https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2022BX6Eso532xqrUxD...
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
Yaggo 10y ago
EE & programming skills combined are superb if you are into robotics, embedded stuff, physical products in general. I do front-end web programming for living but spend my freetime in my "EE lab", self-taughting¹ myself to get out of "yet another React app" limbo. ¹) I don't expect to find a real EE job without a degree, more like a generalist who also has clue about electronics.
- mungoid 10y ago
  Yeah I have been doing software for a long time and a couple years ago I started getting into embedded software and loving it. I have found some embedded developer positions I could get into without an EE degree but would have to take a cut in pay. If that's something you can afford to do, that's probably your best bet. I can't afford to take the cut but some people are better with savings than me lol
uola 10y ago
I think that's an unfair comparison. The reason for EE is to in the end ship products, often many, that works a long time. You can (to some extent) disregard good practices, barely read the datasheets and cobble things together in EE too, but that isn't the default. Make a novel enough amplifier and it can be relevant for decades, while technologies like webgl are often emerging until they are obsolete.
- posterboy 10y ago
  It seems to me, that amplifier design is so slow moving, that the argument is not really in its favor. However, the abstract point makes sense, because only talking about low hanging fruit is misleading. From some higher vantage point, I guess, the fields are too different to be comparable at all, up to the point where it all might come together through maths. Computer Engineering at the intersection of EE and CS is all of both or nothing really, depending on your point of view. A respected man once said, every idiot can count to one ;) But then again, digital and analog with enough precision seem to be the same thing from different perspectives. So, I'm not sure whether it makes sense to look for differences between those.
stephen_g 10y ago
My job is split between software/firmware development (mostly C in Linux on Cortex-A series or in a RTOS on Cortex-M micro controllers) and hardware development (mostly embedded systems, digital control, motor driving, etc., working with RF engineers also). While I started out doing software and love it, for me electronics is just a whole next-level of awesomeness... Altium is actually in many ways a really good piece of software (yes, there are also some annoyances, but they are minor compared to any other electrical design software). It's true that it's stupid expensive but given the other options it is worth the price to us at least. But I get to work on really cool stuff (mostly satellite tracking antenna systems), and our labs are on the side of our building with a full-height window down the entire length, so your milage may vary. I actually don't get the solder fumes either, because we have techs who are much better at reworking tiny surface mount parts than engineers tend to be!
mungoid 10y ago
Good answer. Although I'm actually kind of in the opposite boat. I've been doing software dev for a little over 10 years now and recently I have been leaning more towards electrical engineering. Partly because I loved electronics before I knew how to code, but the main reason is that I have yet to find a software company that can make thought out decisions on languages, frameworks, listen to their devs, etc. Most companies I've worked at usually just pick the most common stuff and go with it because they either don't care or aren't actually the right fit for their position, only to realize waay too late that the software wasn't the best choice. And usually us devs get the blame because we are the magic people that can "make anything work". The other part to this is that we always voice our concerns early on, but they fall on deaf ears because it is too much of a hassle for our decision makers to make more decisions, weigh pros and cons, etc. It gets really frustrating knowing a project is going to have issues down the road but nobody listens until it happens. If you were to look back on our slack chats at the beginning of most projects you would see many devs predicting the issues with almost perfect accuracy. Where as, (imo without real world experience mind you), EE is fairly straight forward because there are only schematics and circuits and tangible progress. No hours long meetings on which of the hundreds of frameworks will guarantee success, PMs that don't really know much about proper project management, owners that think of themselves as the next google even though us dev grunts know that isn't true, etc. I'm probably letting my frustrations guide this reply a little too much, but what i think im trying to say is that the grass always seems to be greener on the other side even if it's not.
northern_lights 10y ago
I honestly cannot understand why anyone would call Altium an "overpriced piece of technical debt." It's an extremely powerful piece of software, and fantastically easy to use (especially compared to some of the crap out there, cough OrCADcough). Perfect? Of course not, but it's not bad.

madengr 10y ago

I like Altium and solder fumes.

antoineMoPa 10y ago
I think the people who coded Altium liked solder fumes... A bit too much.

fake-name 10y ago

If you think Altium is a "overpriced piece of technical debt", HOLY SHIT you should try anything it competes with. It's sooo much nicer then anything else out there in the EDA market. At my work they use Proteus, and it's horrible. Also, solder fumes aren't toxic!

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
antoineMoPa 10y ago
I only tried Altium in "depth" (And some open source shallowly). It is surprising to me that competing products are even worse.
cushychicken 10y ago
If you think Altium is bad, you've never used Orcad. If you think Orcad is good, you've never used Eagle.
- bass_case 10y ago
  If you think eagle is good, you've never used KiCad.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Seriously, I love KiCAD. So much better than eagle, and open source.
  - cushychicken 10y ago
    I'd love a recommendation for a good KiCad intro tutorial. I tried to just hack through learning it once and I couldn't pick it up. Any suggestions?
    - dan1234 10y ago
      I used a YouTube playlist[0] to get the basics down, goes from installing KiCad through to soldering a finished board. [0]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2022BX6Eso532xqrUxDT1u2p4VVsg-q https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2022BX6Eso532xqrUxD...
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]

Yaggo 10y ago

EE & programming skills combined are superb if you are into robotics, embedded stuff, physical products in general. I do front-end web programming for living but spend my freetime in my "EE lab", self-taughting¹ myself to get out of "yet another React app" limbo. ¹) I don't expect to find a real EE job without a degree, more like a generalist who also has clue about electronics.

mungoid 10y ago
Yeah I have been doing software for a long time and a couple years ago I started getting into embedded software and loving it. I have found some embedded developer positions I could get into without an EE degree but would have to take a cut in pay. If that's something you can afford to do, that's probably your best bet. I can't afford to take the cut but some people are better with savings than me lol

uola 10y ago

I think that's an unfair comparison. The reason for EE is to in the end ship products, often many, that works a long time. You can (to some extent) disregard good practices, barely read the datasheets and cobble things together in EE too, but that isn't the default. Make a novel enough amplifier and it can be relevant for decades, while technologies like webgl are often emerging until they are obsolete.

posterboy 10y ago
It seems to me, that amplifier design is so slow moving, that the argument is not really in its favor. However, the abstract point makes sense, because only talking about low hanging fruit is misleading. From some higher vantage point, I guess, the fields are too different to be comparable at all, up to the point where it all might come together through maths. Computer Engineering at the intersection of EE and CS is all of both or nothing really, depending on your point of view. A respected man once said, every idiot can count to one ;) But then again, digital and analog with enough precision seem to be the same thing from different perspectives. So, I'm not sure whether it makes sense to look for differences between those.

stephen_g 10y ago

My job is split between software/firmware development (mostly C in Linux on Cortex-A series or in a RTOS on Cortex-M micro controllers) and hardware development (mostly embedded systems, digital control, motor driving, etc., working with RF engineers also). While I started out doing software and love it, for me electronics is just a whole next-level of awesomeness... Altium is actually in many ways a really good piece of software (yes, there are also some annoyances, but they are minor compared to any other electrical design software). It's true that it's stupid expensive but given the other options it is worth the price to us at least. But I get to work on really cool stuff (mostly satellite tracking antenna systems), and our labs are on the side of our building with a full-height window down the entire length, so your milage may vary. I actually don't get the solder fumes either, because we have techs who are much better at reworking tiny surface mount parts than engineers tend to be!

mungoid 10y ago

Good answer. Although I'm actually kind of in the opposite boat. I've been doing software dev for a little over 10 years now and recently I have been leaning more towards electrical engineering. Partly because I loved electronics before I knew how to code, but the main reason is that I have yet to find a software company that can make thought out decisions on languages, frameworks, listen to their devs, etc. Most companies I've worked at usually just pick the most common stuff and go with it because they either don't care or aren't actually the right fit for their position, only to realize waay too late that the software wasn't the best choice. And usually us devs get the blame because we are the magic people that can "make anything work". The other part to this is that we always voice our concerns early on, but they fall on deaf ears because it is too much of a hassle for our decision makers to make more decisions, weigh pros and cons, etc. It gets really frustrating knowing a project is going to have issues down the road but nobody listens until it happens. If you were to look back on our slack chats at the beginning of most projects you would see many devs predicting the issues with almost perfect accuracy. Where as, (imo without real world experience mind you), EE is fairly straight forward because there are only schematics and circuits and tangible progress. No hours long meetings on which of the hundreds of frameworks will guarantee success, PMs that don't really know much about proper project management, owners that think of themselves as the next google even though us dev grunts know that isn't true, etc. I'm probably letting my frustrations guide this reply a little too much, but what i think im trying to say is that the grass always seems to be greener on the other side even if it's not.

northern_lights 10y ago

I honestly cannot understand why anyone would call Altium an "overpriced piece of technical debt." It's an extremely powerful piece of software, and fantastically easy to use (especially compared to some of the crap out there, cough OrCADcough). Perfect? Of course not, but it's not bad.