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Embedded roles pay less than almost any other role... I feel there should be some sort of diagram possible that explains which industries and technologies pay m

Embedded roles pay less than almost any other role... I feel there should be some sort of diagram possible that explains which industries and technologies pay more or less.

lnsru 4y ago
Hardware is just slow and ugly. It’s not scalable and really profitable. Write C and C++ code all day for embedded devices and decided, that slowly I want to do something different and more profitable.
danuker 4y ago
https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#salary-and-experience-by-language https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#salary-and-experience-... Note the C/C++/C#/SQL cluster at $70k/12years of experience.
bitL 4y ago
Not just embedded, robotics or automotive have pretty low C++ salaries while much higher for Java or even JavaScript... C++ devs are punished for being more capable.
- coliveira 4y ago
  It's not an issue of capacity, it is demand. C++ developers cannot write websites in C++, so big companies will have to pay somebody else.
  - manuel_w 4y ago
    Not posting to make a counterpoint but simply because related and interesting for the C++ folks around here. > Wt is a web GUI library in modern C++. Quickly develop highly interactive web UIs with widgets, without having to write a single line of JavaScript. Wt handles all request handling and page rendering for you, so you can focus on functionality. https://www.webtoolkit.eu/wt https://www.webtoolkit.eu/wt HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23812791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23812791
    - coliveira 4y ago
      Thanks, but just a reminder of why we don't use C++ for web applications: creating a web app is basically a string manipulation problem. The work in most cases is just getting data from a database and returning text that represents the HTML+CSS in the web page. Not only you don't need the C++ speed to do this process, but string manipulation is also the weak spot of C++, due to the need for manual memory management.
      - zozbot234 4y ago
        Yes, the ease of safe string manipulation is quite possibly one of the clearest wins for Rust over C++.
  - FpUser 4y ago
    >"C++ developers cannot write websites in C++" I actually doing all web backend using C++. I do not render to HTML though. All JSON based RPC. Rendering done by front end JavaScript.
- girvo 4y ago
  Automotive is just embedded with some even more painful tool chains, to be fair. I get paid very well doing embedded firmware dev, but that’s because we don’t make money on our hardware, we make money on the software that it talks to for industrial IoT analytics
adave 4y ago
Not really if you know where to look and work on platforms. Pay is at par with backend devs if not full stack ones. ML/AI is the where the money is though.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> I feel there should be some sort of diagram possible that explains which industries and technologies pay more or less. Is the entity you are selling your services to earning a large profit margin? If yes, then it is possible (but not guaranteed) for you to earn more. If not, then look elsewhere. Generally, this situation happens in businesses that can scale with little to no marginal costs (software, media), can use governments to defend its property (intellectual property, land), and can be easily used as collateral (land) with which you can obtain leverage (money).
flir 4y ago
The tooling's a lot worse, too. I'd be interested in hearing theories as to why.
- aidenn0 4y ago
  Some reasons the tooling is worse: 1. A lot of the tooling is made by the hardware suppliers. Hardware suppliers tend to be very bad at writing desktop software; I have some theories as to why that is, but no direct evidence for them. 2. When tools are selected, they are rarely evaluated by software developers who will be using them. It's more like "Here's a list of boxes anything our development tools need to check" and then the final selection for anything that checks engoubh boxes is done for business reasons (cost, likely availability of support down the line &c.) 3. The same reason that embedded developers are often paid poor salaries; for a lot of hardware companies, the firmware development is treated more as a cost-center than as something that generates revenue.
jakesgates 4y ago
Do you have a source you can share for this?
sliken 4y ago
Or take 10 minutes and look at the job ads. After all the supply/demand for different jobs changes over time and by location.

Embedded roles pay less than almost any other role... I feel there should be some sort of diagram possible that explains which industries and technologies pay more or less.

lnsru 4y ago

Hardware is just slow and ugly. It’s not scalable and really profitable. Write C and C++ code all day for embedded devices and decided, that slowly I want to do something different and more profitable.

danuker 4y ago

https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#salary-and-experience-by-language https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#salary-and-experience-... Note the C/C++/C#/SQL cluster at $70k/12years of experience.

bitL 4y ago

Not just embedded, robotics or automotive have pretty low C++ salaries while much higher for Java or even JavaScript... C++ devs are punished for being more capable.

coliveira 4y ago
It's not an issue of capacity, it is demand. C++ developers cannot write websites in C++, so big companies will have to pay somebody else.
- manuel_w 4y ago
  Not posting to make a counterpoint but simply because related and interesting for the C++ folks around here. > Wt is a web GUI library in modern C++. Quickly develop highly interactive web UIs with widgets, without having to write a single line of JavaScript. Wt handles all request handling and page rendering for you, so you can focus on functionality. https://www.webtoolkit.eu/wt https://www.webtoolkit.eu/wt HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23812791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23812791
  - coliveira 4y ago
    Thanks, but just a reminder of why we don't use C++ for web applications: creating a web app is basically a string manipulation problem. The work in most cases is just getting data from a database and returning text that represents the HTML+CSS in the web page. Not only you don't need the C++ speed to do this process, but string manipulation is also the weak spot of C++, due to the need for manual memory management.
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      Yes, the ease of safe string manipulation is quite possibly one of the clearest wins for Rust over C++.
- FpUser 4y ago
  >"C++ developers cannot write websites in C++" I actually doing all web backend using C++. I do not render to HTML though. All JSON based RPC. Rendering done by front end JavaScript.
girvo 4y ago
Automotive is just embedded with some even more painful tool chains, to be fair. I get paid very well doing embedded firmware dev, but that’s because we don’t make money on our hardware, we make money on the software that it talks to for industrial IoT analytics

adave 4y ago

Not really if you know where to look and work on platforms. Pay is at par with backend devs if not full stack ones. ML/AI is the where the money is though.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

> I feel there should be some sort of diagram possible that explains which industries and technologies pay more or less. Is the entity you are selling your services to earning a large profit margin? If yes, then it is possible (but not guaranteed) for you to earn more. If not, then look elsewhere. Generally, this situation happens in businesses that can scale with little to no marginal costs (software, media), can use governments to defend its property (intellectual property, land), and can be easily used as collateral (land) with which you can obtain leverage (money).

flir 4y ago

The tooling's a lot worse, too. I'd be interested in hearing theories as to why.

aidenn0 4y ago
Some reasons the tooling is worse: 1. A lot of the tooling is made by the hardware suppliers. Hardware suppliers tend to be very bad at writing desktop software; I have some theories as to why that is, but no direct evidence for them. 2. When tools are selected, they are rarely evaluated by software developers who will be using them. It's more like "Here's a list of boxes anything our development tools need to check" and then the final selection for anything that checks engoubh boxes is done for business reasons (cost, likely availability of support down the line &c.) 3. The same reason that embedded developers are often paid poor salaries; for a lot of hardware companies, the firmware development is treated more as a cost-center than as something that generates revenue.

jakesgates 4y ago

Do you have a source you can share for this?

sliken 4y ago

Or take 10 minutes and look at the job ads. After all the supply/demand for different jobs changes over time and by location.