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Mech E here. The reality we’re paid less is because it’s harder to make a profit (but to be fair, MechE in tech get paid well still). Making good margins is rea
by syntaxing 4y ago
Mech E here. The reality we’re paid less is because it’s harder to make a profit (but to be fair, MechE in tech get paid well still). Making good margins is really hard. You have one shot to do anything. Worse of all, anyone can take apart your design, reverse engineer and sell your product by 20% less because they don’t have to worry about recovering R&D. Most Americans won’t even bat an eye, they’ll just buy whatever works and is cheap and affordable to them.
- isthisthingon99 4y agoThis is the correct insight. The costs that were going to materials, regulations etc just don't exist with software. So the majority of the money goes to the majority of the inputs which is labor.
- auxym 4y agoCorrect. Software companies have very little cost other than engineering. For hardware, once your engineers have created a design, you still have to operate a factory, pay for expensive manufacturing equipment and expensive labor required to actually build the design. Thus, you get much less "margin per engineer" and the available portion of gross margin that can be paid to engineering is much smaller. Still, thank you OP. It's nice to get some recognition sometimes :)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- amelius 4y agoYeah, but you have patent protection. Software engineers don't have that in all parts of the world.
- keewee7 4y agoChina doesn't care about patents and will manufacture your design for 1/3rd of the price.
- moooo99 4y agoNot to forget they will manufacture it for 1/3rd of the price, often with 1/4th of the quality of the original part but still will put your logo onto it. And you as the original part maker then to struggle with the damage to your reputation