Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by stas2k » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

fleventynine wrote: post #12

0x20cowboy wrote: post #9

I loved tinkering with electronics when I was younger - still do to a smaller degree. I built my first computer by fixing some blown capacitors on a motherboard I found in the trash. Back in the day, lots of products came with schematics, now you might get a lawsuit if you dare to take something apart. It was way easier to take apart and tweak through hole components too - now everything is surface mount or on chip a…

Surface mount isn't that big of a deal. A cheap hot air gun, a soldering iron, flux, and some solder paste are all you need to work with most BGAs, QFN, and other modern packages. PCB prototype manufacturing has never been cheaper thanks to companies like JLCPCB. With all the fantastic learning material on YouTube, open source tools like KiCad, and inexpensive chinese test equipment, the kids these days can do WAY mo…

Could not agree more. I have designed my first PCB in Kicad as a MIT licence project.

Kicad ecosystem is very much alive and I was able to reuse dimensions from another project for the same computer.

I made a RAM expansion board for Sharp X68000. You can check it out on https://github.com/stas2k/galspanic

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

#22

Post by frazbin » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

Might be a language thing. Observationally, the products of hardware design cross language barriers better than software/UX. Therefore software producers compete mostly within their own language, but hardware producers must complete globally. This would tend to produce a deficit of HW engineers in countries like the US/UK, just because there isn't as much money to chase vs software.

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

#23

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

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…

As someone in software with an EE background, I think it's simple. There's far more demand for software people compared to the available supply, so pay rates are high. Which job is "harder" has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I noticed the trend about 20 years ago when I decided that I'd never again have a job that was mostly hardware design. The money's in software.

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

#24

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #3

It seems like undergrads are entering ECE/EECS departments with far more programing experience as well, and there is far more awareness / advertisement / (over)hyping of "glamorous" FAANG-type environments and trajectories. As compared to EE companies where the perception is that jobs are far more "traditional". Regarding the article's comments on the decline of tinkering, either it's causal or correlated, but it see…

[deleted]

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

#25

Post by humanwhosits » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

Perhaps there will be a wage spike if there's less EEs

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

#26

Post by devwastaken » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 10:07 PM UTC

Stop tying engineering to universities and the problem will be solved. People want careers, they want to solve complex problems, and we have more tooling and knowledge than ever to do so. The problem is U S. Education is squeezing it dry.

In the U.K. you can go for engineering in many fields without it breaking the bank or having to compete for the top 0.1% of schools.

If india, Taiwan, and china can do better than the U.S. - there's a big problem. Rebuild the system.

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

#27

Post by georgeburdell » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 10:10 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #19

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…

Profit margin. It's all profit margin. Software is reliably >25%, where physical manufacturing is in the single digits.

But the question is why? Shouldn’t there be the same race to single digit margins in software as well?

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

#28

Post by robk » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

devwastaken wrote: post #26

Stop tying engineering to universities and the problem will be solved. People want careers, they want to solve complex problems, and we have more tooling and knowledge than ever to do so. The problem is U S. Education is squeezing it dry. In the U.K. you can go for engineering in many fields without it breaking the bank or having to compete for the top 0.1% of schools. If india, Taiwan, and china can do better than t…

I don't see us producing a surplus of EEs here despite that

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

#29

Post by georgeburdell » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 10:13 PM UTC

supertrope wrote: post #16

shswkna wrote: post #5

The article is basically saying that there is a focus on commoditising tech talent for what builds shareholder value, and a loss of the passion, imagination and richness that tech can add to the world. My own relationship with tech reflects in that: I despise some of the things that tech is used for and has managed to amplify in our species. I still pursue my passion because somewhere deep down I know that it could a…

Intel cancelled their sponsorship of Intel Science Talent Search. That was a relatively cheap way to build goodwill and cultivate the talent pipeline.

ISEF was a competition among parents and professors living vicariously through children

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

#30

Post by Johnythree » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 10:15 PM UTC

0x20cowboy wrote: post #9

I loved tinkering with electronics when I was younger - still do to a smaller degree. I built my first computer by fixing some blown capacitors on a motherboard I found in the trash. Back in the day, lots of products came with schematics, now you might get a lawsuit if you dare to take something apart. It was way easier to take apart and tweak through hole components too - now everything is surface mount or on chip a…

I find SMT easier than through-hole. And I say B.S. to your line of "rewire a stereo to broadcast instead of receive". There's very little commonality between a stereo and a Transmitter. Whatever, there are still thousands of Hams building Transmitters.