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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

#191

Post by lowbloodsugar »

bumby wrote: post #122

Food for thought: At the time of this comment almost all the top comments are about pay. No doubt pay is an important consideration, but it worries me when it’s the primary consideration. The best engineers I know like engineering because they have a natural curiosity to learn how things work, not because it’s the easiest route to riches. Any engineering position can lead to a comfortable life, but when everything is…

>To paraphrase a professor of mine: “there are people who’s goal is to climb to the top of the world and those who’s whose goal is to build the world. Be careful not to confuse the two.”

The new goal is to have enough money for gas and healthcare while also paying off the student loans.

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

#192

Post by nitwit005 »

bumby wrote: post #122

Food for thought: At the time of this comment almost all the top comments are about pay. No doubt pay is an important consideration, but it worries me when it’s the primary consideration. The best engineers I know like engineering because they have a natural curiosity to learn how things work, not because it’s the easiest route to riches. Any engineering position can lead to a comfortable life, but when everything is…

It doesn't really seem like a "hustle" thing. You have the choice in working one of two quite similar jobs, in quite similar fields, but one of the jobs pays far more.

You also may have a friend who's already made the move telling you to join.

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

#193

Post by atlgator »

bumby wrote: post #122

Food for thought: At the time of this comment almost all the top comments are about pay. No doubt pay is an important consideration, but it worries me when it’s the primary consideration. The best engineers I know like engineering because they have a natural curiosity to learn how things work, not because it’s the easiest route to riches. Any engineering position can lead to a comfortable life, but when everything is…

When the CS pay is double EE pay, if not more, it's a non-starter.

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

#194

Post by lamontcg »

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…

Same thing could be said in 2007.

All of the goldbug quantity-theory-of-money folks were screaming about Greenspan holding rates artifically low for so long -- both before the tech bubble in 2001 and up until they started to delicately raise rates after 2003.

Once the real crash starts to unfold it may get bad for awhile, but once the Billionaires start getting worried about it they'll hit the monetary gas pedal again. SWEs will mostly weather the storm, and even if it gets bad enough that a lot of them lose their jobs (particularly at the margins), it'll still all come back.

Which is to stay that the Fed will definitely not stick to their guns once something significant pops.

(And your analysis kind of shows that there will be significant pain because everything has been built up around the interest rate environment that we've had post-2009 and trying to create any kind of structural change there will definitely cause a crash -- And the Fed works for the Billionaires so once they start to feel the pain then policy will reverse)

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

#195

Post by mint2 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #103
Xcelerate wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went from chemical engineering into data science, and I wonder this constantly. Everything about chemical engineering was much more difficult (at least what you would be expected to do in a typical job; exceptions apply). I really miss the hard sciences, but I also really do not want to take a 4x pay cut. Also, I'm not sure about the supply and demand argument. The typical ask for a data scientist is much simpler t…

There aren’t any people over the age of like 35 who started their career in data science. Careers are sticky, people don’t like switching once they’re in one. They’re being trained quickly and I think you’re right, the salary used to be higher than a normal software dev but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

Same, I miss Cheme and actually doing work on physical systems. But applied DS is more lucrative and so much more flexible in work location. DS is way easier although the stats and programming does throw many people off

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

#196

Post by golemarms »

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…

> If the Federal Reserve sticks to its guns and gets rates up, and keeps them there, it will be unsurprising to see "hard" engineering jobs be valuable again, while all the CSS people suddenly can't find two pennies to rub together.

I was under the impression that "hard" engineering isn't as financially attractive to investors due to the long payoff period as compared to web software. In that case, won't high interest rates actually hurt "hard" engineering due to a greater discount being applied to future cashflows?

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

#197

Post by carpdiem »

hosh wrote: post #186
hellohowareu wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. Making ~$145k salary, with $40k in bonuses. This is with 3 years of experience in Full Stack Web Dev SWE, and zero years in DevOps (but some basic experience with containers, cloud, and general linux server config). I was hired as a Web App SWE, but was offered the chance to train in DevOps and took it, in order to grow additional skills. Full stack web apps are mostly CRUD. To learn the ecosystem around…

Better to hire generalists who can relentlessly dig through problems while under time pressure, and maintain emotional equanimity. These are the people who will figure out Kubernetes, even if they don't have prior experience. I've been through a hiring process where they tested for that, and I'm stealing that method.

Can you share more details about how that hiring process tested for that? I'd love to hear about it.

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

#198

Post by ChadNauseam »

notch656a wrote: post #176
killjoywashere wrote: post #119

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.…

Quoted post unavailable.

I don’t really get this mentality. I love coding and want to share the things I love about it with other people. If I knew someone out there was teaching a freshman-level class and deliberately leaving a bad impression or scaring people off, I’d be pretty annoyed.

I only took one programming class in college, which was designed as a weed-out class and it did succeed in weeding me out. Luckily I continued teaching myself how to program and now I make more than either of my parents doing a job I love. Part of a professor’s job is to educate, so I suggest they leave the hazing to the frats and at least try to be good at it.

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

#199

Post by mjh2539 »

golemarms wrote: post #196
boppo1 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> If the Federal Reserve sticks to its guns and gets rates up, and keeps them there, it will be unsurprising to see "hard" engineering jobs be valuable again, while all the CSS people suddenly can't find two pennies to rub together. I was under the impression that "hard" engineering isn't as financially attractive to investors due to the long payoff period as compared to web software. In that case, won't high interes…

Precisely; electrical engineering as a field requires enormous amounts of capital. Software development also requires capital, but not nearly as much, and the returns are much higher.

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

#200

Post by notch656a »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #198
notch656a wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I don’t really get this mentality. I love coding and want to share the things I love about it with other people. If I knew someone out there was teaching a freshman-level class and deliberately leaving a bad impression or scaring people off, I’d be pretty annoyed. I only took one programming class in college, which was designed as a weed-out class and it did succeed in weeding me out. Luckily I continued teaching mys…

I don't get the mentality that people think they're entitled to be coddled. By all means, if you disapprove of the way a university does things, don't enroll. You can be an engineer without college. You're free to start your own university, if your teaching is truly better and more rewarding to your students the free market will make you a rich man.

Personally I'm glad there are places where academic rigor doesn't bend just because some people interpreted it to be ill intent, when really the ill intent was their perception to academic challenge.

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