My two cents, having done some of both... Embedded systems don't really scale the same way backend systems do. In embedded, you write the firmware, and it gets

My two cents, having done some of both... Embedded systems don't really scale the same way backend systems do. In embedded, you write the firmware, and it gets loaded into thousands or millions of devices. There may be a few updates, but firmware kind of gets frozen in time. With backend, you write code that can be used to expand a business. You're adding features to grow marketshare or scaling up to meet user demand, so it has a more direct correlation with the health of a business. It's less of a cost center, and more of an investment.