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Sounds like there’s a gap in the market. I’m hugely enthusiastic hobbyist that would love to chat more about robotics, in particular how a hobbyist could get s

by tomp 4y ago

Sounds like there’s a gap in the market. I’m hugely enthusiastic hobbyist that would love to chat more about robotics, in particular how a hobbyist could get started with it (a robot arm + camera maybe?). I’d love to buy you virtual coffee, get in touch if you’re up to it!

lnsru 4y ago
There are many gaps in the robotics market. But there are 2 main show stoppers: 1. Starting robotics venture is very expensive. You need at least 3 engineers(hardware+software+electronics) for at least 3 years with tons of expensive hardware to reach MVP. 2. The clients will not buy from a company that might be gone in 2 years when the whole installation is planned for a decade. The client is mostly integrator choosing familiar system components. The 3rd show stopper is that the product must work 100% or the time. 99,5% is not enough. Automation is here to replace people instead of having a robot with maintenance crew nearby.
sbierwagen 4y ago
I think it's structural. Salaries between EE and CS sharply diverged decades ago, and I don't think they'll ever meet again. The finances on pure software are just so much better. Better margins, better scale, better return on equity. Since ROE is always going to be better (because you're not touching atoms) you'll always have better valuation on the stock market, and be able to pay programmers better. It's less a "gap" in the market and more "the market functioning correctly". There's no law of the universe that says programming a robot has to pay as well as programming a SAAS webapp. Think about scale. If you teach programming at a middle school, you have maybe 100 customers at a time. If you work for a hardware company, you have 1,000,000 customers. If you work for facebook, you have 3,000,000,000 customers. Which one of these will pay the most?
- PeterisP 4y ago
  If the jobs require similar skills/aptitude/talent and a similar level of "investment" in job-specific training and experience, then the market force expectation is that as the information about the pay gap becomes clear, potential engineers would avoid EE jobs in favor on CS jobs, and EE training in favor of web development training, until the shortage of employees forces hardware companies to pay robot programmers as good as SAAS programmers or be unable to hire robot programmers.
  - azov 4y ago
    I think this is exactly what’s happening. Physical manufacturing moving to low cost countries also plays a role. If we want to not lose (or should I say restore?) the ability to manufacture stuff in the US this trend has to be broken somehow.

by tomp 4y ago

lnsru 4y ago

There are many gaps in the robotics market. But there are 2 main show stoppers: 1. Starting robotics venture is very expensive. You need at least 3 engineers(hardware+software+electronics) for at least 3 years with tons of expensive hardware to reach MVP. 2. The clients will not buy from a company that might be gone in 2 years when the whole installation is planned for a decade. The client is mostly integrator choosing familiar system components. The 3rd show stopper is that the product must work 100% or the time. 99,5% is not enough. Automation is here to replace people instead of having a robot with maintenance crew nearby.

sbierwagen 4y ago

I think it's structural. Salaries between EE and CS sharply diverged decades ago, and I don't think they'll ever meet again. The finances on pure software are just so much better. Better margins, better scale, better return on equity. Since ROE is always going to be better (because you're not touching atoms) you'll always have better valuation on the stock market, and be able to pay programmers better. It's less a "gap" in the market and more "the market functioning correctly". There's no law of the universe that says programming a robot has to pay as well as programming a SAAS webapp. Think about scale. If you teach programming at a middle school, you have maybe 100 customers at a time. If you work for a hardware company, you have 1,000,000 customers. If you work for facebook, you have 3,000,000,000 customers. Which one of these will pay the most?

PeterisP 4y ago
If the jobs require similar skills/aptitude/talent and a similar level of "investment" in job-specific training and experience, then the market force expectation is that as the information about the pay gap becomes clear, potential engineers would avoid EE jobs in favor on CS jobs, and EE training in favor of web development training, until the shortage of employees forces hardware companies to pay robot programmers as good as SAAS programmers or be unable to hire robot programmers.
- azov 4y ago
  I think this is exactly what’s happening. Physical manufacturing moving to low cost countries also plays a role. If we want to not lose (or should I say restore?) the ability to manufacture stuff in the US this trend has to be broken somehow.