In terms of pay/work ratio, it might always hold true that it trends lower for embedded work. For individuals, though, I think the variation is a lot higher. I

In terms of pay/work ratio, it might always hold true that it trends lower for embedded work. For individuals, though, I think the variation is a lot higher. In my personal experience, there's a huge demand for experienced embedded software engineers in the bay area, and companies are willing to pay competitively. The team at my current company has grown from just me to a dozen embedded engineers, and we have several open positions for more. When I worked at Google, I'm pretty sure the embedded software folk had above average total compensation compared to general software engineers. I think a big part of it, though, is that embedded engineers in silicon valley tend to get pulled into longer term high capital expense projects. The compensation packages tend to be more equity than salary, and so the salary component is below average. You need to be willing to take the risk to get the upside. From what I hear from friends in the midwest, the compensation is significantly lower than the difference in cost of living, which is unfortunate. Salaries may be above average, but without much if any equity. Another part of it, I think, is the sheer amount of interdisciplinary and domain specific knowledge required to be a truly strong embedded software engineer. The demand curve is very heavily biased toward senior level engineers. The companies with the money to spend want the best, and with such high capital expenditure projects, they can't really afford not to.