4 ms·

This year I took a logic design course that had a few labs in VHDL with FPGAs which was a lot of fun. Thanks for the info, its good to know that I am on the rig

by aeleos 8y ago

This year I took a logic design course that had a few labs in VHDL with FPGAs which was a lot of fun. Thanks for the info, its good to know that I am on the right track. I have heard a little bit about the process from a friend of mine who works in aerospace software engineering, and according to him like 90% of his job is design documents and other paperwork. I am kinda surprised to hear that the pay isn't very good, but its good to hear that its changing. Is this mostly due to the older workforce retiring or are there other factors that are causing it?

pdelbarba 8y ago
Keep in mind that "pay" is a very nebulous concept in software. Embedded work clusters around the same cities that high level work does but I've found there to be more variety in some aspects. Defence work in particular will take you outside the bay area so that helps immensely in terms of income vs expenses. Small companies I've found don't pay well though. Everyone is talking about supply and demand but the reality of the situation is there's a second factor at play. Devs cost money and make money for the company. In web land, you Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V every time you want more money. In the embedded world you're usually interfacing with hardware and hardware has a monetary cost to produce. That cost is actually insanely high by tech world standards so that kills the massive margins that would otherwise go towards fighting for talent. There's also typically more risk due to the fact that you can't just edit a production application to fix it. You have to re-run production every time a flaw is found in hardware and sometimes even in software. That also moves money away from talent. Now, the advent of cheap chinese manufacturing and increases in R&D cash help with a lot of that. The consumer electronics world is cutthroat but research work is pretty easy to come by and IMO very rewarding. Space seems like a potentially profitable sector at the moment, though that currently hinges entirely on one guy and his rockets. If it continues to take off, expect a gold rush in a decade or so. Long story short, you'll still make good money, just not the 200k starting salaries of the bay area for the most part. Do what interests you and makes you happy or you'll burn out.

by aeleos 8y ago

pdelbarba 8y ago

Keep in mind that "pay" is a very nebulous concept in software. Embedded work clusters around the same cities that high level work does but I've found there to be more variety in some aspects. Defence work in particular will take you outside the bay area so that helps immensely in terms of income vs expenses. Small companies I've found don't pay well though. Everyone is talking about supply and demand but the reality of the situation is there's a second factor at play. Devs cost money and make money for the company. In web land, you Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V every time you want more money. In the embedded world you're usually interfacing with hardware and hardware has a monetary cost to produce. That cost is actually insanely high by tech world standards so that kills the massive margins that would otherwise go towards fighting for talent. There's also typically more risk due to the fact that you can't just edit a production application to fix it. You have to re-run production every time a flaw is found in hardware and sometimes even in software. That also moves money away from talent. Now, the advent of cheap chinese manufacturing and increases in R&D cash help with a lot of that. The consumer electronics world is cutthroat but research work is pretty easy to come by and IMO very rewarding. Space seems like a potentially profitable sector at the moment, though that currently hinges entirely on one guy and his rockets. If it continues to take off, expect a gold rush in a decade or so. Long story short, you'll still make good money, just not the 200k starting salaries of the bay area for the most part. Do what interests you and makes you happy or you'll burn out.