> you can make lots of coin, but they're rare, and most tend to involve an awful lot of years of hard learning before you're competent (embedded dev and firmwar

> you can make lots of coin, but they're rare, and most tend to involve an awful lot of years of hard learning before you're competent (embedded dev and firmware/OS dev are some fields desperate for competent hires). Embedded dev and firmware both seem to pay comparatively poorly, despite the expertise required to do it well. Last year I discussed a number of contracts in this area, and when I found how much was on offer, they were all distinctly low compared with other contracts. OS dev, I will grant you, can pay well, eg kernel development, graphics drivers, storage layers. I think that's driven by servers and mobile devices more than embedded. > If you can write solid C, ring 0/EL3 doesn't scare you off, or you can figure out how to cram 10 pounds of hard realtime code into a 5 pound microcontroller... yeah, you'll go far. Oh if only! Doing that stuff is fun. I think cramming hard realtime into microcontrollers is best kept for hobby time if "coin" is what you're after though. Perhaps it's different for big, serious controller projects (like say a Mars rover or satellite), but I think mostly, embedded/microcontroller type things seem to be paid closer to mid-level electronic engineering levels. I don't know why, because there's a lot of expertise involved, but electronic engineering seems to pay considerably less than software at the moment.