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Ya it’s simple economics unfortunately (I’m a hardware engineer). Software can pay more because the cost to produce is lower and so the margins are higher. Hard
by polalavik 2y ago
Ya it’s simple economics unfortunately (I’m a hardware engineer). Software can pay more because the cost to produce is lower and so the margins are higher. Hardware has abysmal margins - design, r&d, failure, debugging, schedule push back, component cost, supply chain logistics, warehousing, manufacturing, etc… the list goes on there’s a million things eating into the bottom line.
- catproc 2y agoPresumably, the end state of the US is one single software company producing nothing but ads. Because it pays the most, no other jobs are important.
- protastus 2y agoIs it? Hardware engineers at Apple, Microsoft, Meta, NVIDIA, Amazon are paid much better than at Intel.
- polalavik 2y agoCheck out the stats on apples margins on hardware vs their services and software ;) And arguably most of these companies (minus Apple and nvidia) have software and services as their bread and butter, not hardware.
- mkipper 2y agoUsing those examples when comparing software and hardware engineering _in general_ gives a skewed perception of things. Three of those companies are only interested in hardware as a way to optimize their (incredibly profitable) software business, and Apple/NVIDIA are two of the three largest companies on earth. That's a teeny tiny slice of the job market. I'd bet that if you averaged out compensation from the top 100 paying companies for both hardware and software engineering rather than the top 5, the software number would be nearly double the hardware number. Once you start look at "normal" companies, the difference in margins between software and hardware and its effect on pay becomes very clear.