3 ms·

Both, and usually significantly. Last I checked it was nearly twice as lucrative to be a Ruby-on-rails developer than an embedded engineer. Embedded also attr

Both, and usually significantly. Last I checked it was nearly twice as lucrative to be a Ruby-on-rails developer than an embedded engineer. Embedded also attracts a certain type of engineer, usually very smart and able to manage extreme complexity with attention to detail but at the cost of anything resembling readable, let alone maintainable, software. The fact that anything at all works in the modern world is amazing. I left the embedded space and have never looked back.

loeg 8y ago
> Last I checked it was nearly twice as lucrative to be a Ruby-on-rails developer than an embedded engineer. Yeah, yikes. That does not sound appealing :-).
howard941 8y ago
So $SALT_MINE, a highly profitable privately held Fortune 500 just decided to revamp their pay scales. They've now decided that they want to be at the 50 percentile remuneration-wise in the durable goods sector. That is the white goods sector, washing machines and such. I predict we will lose all of our engineers - embedded dudes included.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisbennet 8y ago
  Yeah, but their numbers will look good for a year or two and by then they (CEO, etc) will have moved on to another company before things crash.
Rinzler89 8y ago
May I ask how did you manage to leave the embedded world and where did you go after? I'm asking since after investing 6 years into this field, which I love, and jumping a couple of companies I realized the market(Europe) is really bad for this gig. Not only is our work highly challenging it's also poorly paid while at the same time our CEO is crying to the local press they can't find devs(to work for peanuts) and is forced to look for them in Asia.
- xyzzy_plugh 8y ago
  I just went to do something else. I'm definitely a generalist, and now work mostly with "big" data. I had zero embedded experience when I started doing embedded dev, and then I had zero data experience -- but a surprising amount of general experience is applicable!
nickpsecurity 8y ago
"Embedded also attracts a certain type of engineer, usually very smart and able to manage extreme complexity with attention to detail but at the cost of anything resembling readable, let alone maintainable, software. " Heaven for generalists that always love doing new kinds of things. Once I learned about it, I knew I probably should've done embedded instead of security research. Of course, now there's significant interest in overlap. Might not be too late to learn all that stuff after all. :)
- mcv 8y ago
  > Heaven for generalists that always love doing new kinds of things. Really? That's me. I'm in web development, and I've always felt that embedded was far too specialised for me. Though I do prefer readable, maintainable code.

loeg 8y ago

> Last I checked it was nearly twice as lucrative to be a Ruby-on-rails developer than an embedded engineer. Yeah, yikes. That does not sound appealing :-).

howard941 8y ago

So $SALT_MINE, a highly profitable privately held Fortune 500 just decided to revamp their pay scales. They've now decided that they want to be at the 50 percentile remuneration-wise in the durable goods sector. That is the white goods sector, washing machines and such. I predict we will lose all of our engineers - embedded dudes included.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chrisbennet 8y ago
Yeah, but their numbers will look good for a year or two and by then they (CEO, etc) will have moved on to another company before things crash.

Rinzler89 8y ago

May I ask how did you manage to leave the embedded world and where did you go after? I'm asking since after investing 6 years into this field, which I love, and jumping a couple of companies I realized the market(Europe) is really bad for this gig. Not only is our work highly challenging it's also poorly paid while at the same time our CEO is crying to the local press they can't find devs(to work for peanuts) and is forced to look for them in Asia.

xyzzy_plugh 8y ago
I just went to do something else. I'm definitely a generalist, and now work mostly with "big" data. I had zero embedded experience when I started doing embedded dev, and then I had zero data experience -- but a surprising amount of general experience is applicable!

nickpsecurity 8y ago

"Embedded also attracts a certain type of engineer, usually very smart and able to manage extreme complexity with attention to detail but at the cost of anything resembling readable, let alone maintainable, software. " Heaven for generalists that always love doing new kinds of things. Once I learned about it, I knew I probably should've done embedded instead of security research. Of course, now there's significant interest in overlap. Might not be too late to learn all that stuff after all. :)

mcv 8y ago
> Heaven for generalists that always love doing new kinds of things. Really? That's me. I'm in web development, and I've always felt that embedded was far too specialised for me. Though I do prefer readable, maintainable code.