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Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

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Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#111

Post by _vdpp »

boppo1 wrote: post #88
tekla wrote: post #18

I moved into IT from "formal" engineering and its always frustrated me that a job that involves working on extremely expensive engines using upper level college math gets paid almost nothing compared to people who change colors on a webpage every once in a while. I've been on floors where multi-million dollar pieces of equipment are used to produce parts with obscene levels of precision being used by expert machinist…

>It makes no sense. Why is web software so easy to make money in? Why do we value hard engineering so little? Interest rate intervention (making them lower than equilibrium) changed the DCF valuation that is the fundamental way of evaluating business (i.e. people working together on large endeavors) to one where promising massive returns in the future(20+ years) made low returns in the near term (x now had to adjust…

I’ve been wondering if SWE pay rates have been artificially high for a while due to easy lending - it will be interesting to see if your prediction comes true. Probably a lot of SW companies out there right now are dependent on discretionary income which puts them at risk in a tough market.

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#112

Post by jfim »

chrisco255 wrote: post #104
drewcoo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is a pure ideas business. You'd be surprised how many people have, sell, and get venture capital for ideas without a huge upfront spend attached just to try something out. Software is the scratch tickets of "engineering."

Nice, haven't seen "engineering" elitism since university. Software is the nervous system of a business. Everything from accounting, to payroll, to inventory tracking, to sales, to marketing, to communications, is achieved in today's world by interfacing with dozens if not hundreds of software programs and systems. Impossible to achieve with hardware alone obviously, you need operating systems, you need data centers,…

Most of that is software glue, and not particularly challenging. It's necessary to run a modern company to have this kind of glue to connect systems together, but at the same time EE and ChemE are much more challenging.

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#113

Post by ranger_danger »

arduinomancer wrote: post #68

Personally I think from a business standpoint its just much easier to make money from software compared to hardware. Very low marginal unit costs, easy distribution, faster iteration, easier to scale, etc...

I agree but as a developer I have zero clue how to come up with useful ideas that haven't been done a hundred times over. And I have had zero success trying to find a platform for freelancers where you don't have to compete with less experienced third world coders underbidding everyone (and the customers always seem to pick them anyway).

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#114

Post by hellohowareu »

tekla wrote: post #18

I moved into IT from "formal" engineering and its always frustrated me that a job that involves working on extremely expensive engines using upper level college math gets paid almost nothing compared to people who change colors on a webpage every once in a while. I've been on floors where multi-million dollar pieces of equipment are used to produce parts with obscene levels of precision being used by expert machinist…

Supply & Demand (aka Market Economics) dictates pay rate.

Not difficulty, danger, or years spent studying challenging topics.

Changing a color... that's basic html/css-- that's the lowest pay rung of front end developers, which is the lowest paid occupational field within the occupation of full stack web app engineers. So, you're grossly exaggerating. People who just change colors of a web site might make $15-20/hr in the US.

The folks making $150-$200k+ have skills in frontend development, serverside development, databases, plus often things like data engineering or setting up/maintaining cloud computing infrastructure. From there, add in specialty Security knowledge or Machine Learning or highly efficient massively global scale+speed programs, and you'll begin to understand how they're making $400k-$600k+

For example: Go have a look at kubernetes (combined with Docker, Helm, and a Cloud provider + all the various underlying technologies which involve an OS and 2+ programming languages and/or frameworks) and tell me how difficult it is compared to machining + CNCing + welding a metal part. Not to knock machinists-- I've worked on metal machines and I understand why master mechanics make $100k/year.

But I also see why they don't make $200k/year (exception for luxury vehicles)-- there's only so much to learn and only so many dimensions of complexity, especially in terms of continuing education on new technology.

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#115

Post by quickthrower2 »

People say supply/demand but also they is price stickiness/anchoring.

A grad SF coder might make $200k but in Europe they might make $20k and I believer the main reason is that prices are sticky.

Like the housing market when you want to buy X you need to judge what X is worth and so you look to the market to see what other people are paying for X.

Candidates too are playing the same game.

The talent market acting like the stock market effectively.

This means SF companies have to be very profitable or grow fast.

A European company can plot along and be efficient, have bad sales etc. but survive on the cheap staff costs for a long time a a zombie.

It means any well tuned geo-arb company, selling in the US and paying locals outside can make a fortune.

Someone in 2050 “when i was young you could earn a fortune as a software engineer because for some reason they didn’t have the efficient global labour market we have now. Now that all the coders work for Uber Code many have decided electrical engineering is actually a better choice as it pays a bit more”

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#116

Post by galangalalgol »

MonkeyClub wrote: post #64
tekla wrote: post #18

I moved into IT from "formal" engineering and its always frustrated me that a job that involves working on extremely expensive engines using upper level college math gets paid almost nothing compared to people who change colors on a webpage every once in a while. I've been on floors where multi-million dollar pieces of equipment are used to produce parts with obscene levels of precision being used by expert machinist…

> compared to people who change colors on a webpage every once in a while. I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but that being said... Finally someone said it! Ok, I understand that we’re in some anal-retentive age as humans, where we’re discovering our new digital medium and whatnot, but enough with the fixation on small shiny digital bullshit - it’s robbing us of real depth and wonder. And if it’s reached to t…

Not sure that bubble is long for this world. Scarcity called, it said "remember me? Ive been on vacation to everywhere but the west, now I'm back!".

What makes shrooms better than coke? Never tried either one, probably not stable enough to risk it, so curious what your valuation criteria are.

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#117

Post by lumost »

noodle wrote: post #99
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #66

Pay more and get more talent. If a local web startup is paying 2x, 3x, 5x more money for some html and css (and/or whatever language of the week is for the backend), than companies like Intel are paying for serious hardware knowledge, it's no wonder people don't choose this profession.

As a CompE and EE major who switched to software after graduation like 20 years ago, EE work was also like way harder IMO. They SHOULD be getting paid more. But they don't seem to be. I switched due to low salary and few available jobs and never looked back.

IIRC intel pays the “Median” compensation for a position. This ultimately doesn’t mean much in semi when intel was hiring 3/4 of the engineering talent.

Inflation has been brutal to gen y/z in ways that aren’t tracked. A recent college graduate in EE makes about the same they did 30 years ago, but paid 10x for college and 4x for housing.

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#118

Post by Spooky23 »

bumby wrote: post #79
Spooky23 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because real engineers become hyper-specialists and get trapped. My one my high school classmates was a mechanical engineer who was one of the top guys for some semiconductor process that failed to scale and got abandoned. Got laid off and was unemployable. He sold herballife to go back to school and is a physical therapist now. It happens in software too. Plenty of sad tales of geezers let go from banks and governme…

This doesn’t ring true to me, especially for an ME which is one of the broadest disciplines. I know one who had a BS and has worked in construction on building automation and energy systems, automotive robotics, healthcare as a process engineer, aerospace software, and finally as a data scientist.

Some people struggle with reinvention. I tend to branch out every 4-5 years. I think this person thought he had the one true career and had difficulty with reality.

Our high school cohort was just old enough to see the end of the “dinosaur” tech company era. This guy was a few years older than me (his younger brother was my age), I think he thought he was retiring with a gold watch or whatever.

It seems quaint now, but it was a thing. My dad’s friend was a GE lifer, they moved around the world like they were in the army to the next posting.

Today, we’re all more paranoid and mercenary, even govenrment workers jump ship.

Re: Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

#119

Post by killjoywashere »

EE spent so many years making sure everyone knew it's impossibly hard, the professors eat their young, etc. I've seen this in other professions where the incumbents desperately want to impose, in actuality, the uphill-both-ways life story they believe they endured. And then they are shocked when the young peace out. The military, and their insanely rigorous special warfare training. The medical profession in general.

Seriously, people, what did you expect was going to happen?

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