Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

users.ece.utexas.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 37 posts

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#21

Post by tpmx »

fest wrote: post #11
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>pay very little to do Not in Europe. Since FAANG level jobs aren't that numerous here compared to US so the difference between embedded and non-embedded work is close to zero. Pay is pretty similar. Add sure, but if your only target in life is working for FAANG & Co. then every other tech job in the world pays very little. You might as well also not want to be a doctor, teacher, lawyer, as well because hey, FAANG pa…

Yeah, I work in a robotics company in Europe- our embedded people are paid essentially the same as web/enterprise software developers in the same market. Definitely a lot less remote Opportunities (though usually for institutional reasons- most of the work can be done remotely, if company is organized for that- which not a lot are). EEs are IMHO underpaid in both sides of the pond though.

> EEs are IMHO underpaid in both sides of the pond though.

Because of EEs in PRC and Taiwan with relatively speaking much lower salaries for about the same level of competency [who also have native-level access to the design/supply ecosystem over there].

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#22

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

kierank wrote: post #20
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Binary blobs you say? How about how our entire lives are ruined by having to use garbage apps like Teams every day or any other multitude of garbage websites on a daily baiss ? Did you actually work in the embedded industry, or are you just venting on some bad experiences you had with some boards/phones? You know, embedded is more than r-pi clones and android devices, right? It's auomotive, aerospace, industrial auto…

Unfortunately the industry I am in (multimedia) is slowly getting invaded by all the awful embedded development practices, binary blobs, custom forks, hacks galore. It's ruining an area where there was clean code, no blobs. Also Linus' ARM rant for good measure: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/15/133 And imagine the stuff they didn't upstream...I'm sure that's part of some magic SDK that only works on one version of gli…

what is the „multimedia“ industry, and does it run along the data highway?

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#23

Post by Palomides »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #15
kierank wrote: post #5

Seems to miss the part where it's ok to create terrible software in embedded, with custom forks of everything, binary blobs galore. But it's all fine as it shaves a few cents from the BOM.

>Seems to miss the part where it's ok to create terrible software in embedded As opposed to the absolute perfection that is modern web, enterprise and mobile SW? >But it's all fine as it shaves a few cents from the BOM. Every engineering job, including SW development, works to reduce material costs and automate away other jobs. Why do you feel embedded development is somehow worse here?

embedded hardware has much simpler cost calculations than web, it's pretty easy to come up with an out the door unit cost for hardware, while a web service might not even have any coherent idea of a unit sold, let alone what it costs before there are users

and a simple number is a very easy bludgeon to wield in discussions about engineering choices

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#24

Post by AnimalMuppet »

fest wrote: post #11
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>pay very little to do Not in Europe. Since FAANG level jobs aren't that numerous here compared to US so the difference between embedded and non-embedded work is close to zero. Pay is pretty similar. Add sure, but if your only target in life is working for FAANG & Co. then every other tech job in the world pays very little. You might as well also not want to be a doctor, teacher, lawyer, as well because hey, FAANG pa…

Yeah, I work in a robotics company in Europe- our embedded people are paid essentially the same as web/enterprise software developers in the same market. Definitely a lot less remote Opportunities (though usually for institutional reasons- most of the work can be done remotely, if company is organized for that- which not a lot are). EEs are IMHO underpaid in both sides of the pond though.

Embedded can be remote, if the hardware is small enough and cheap enough to ship one to each remote developer.

I worked on telephones for the hard of hearing, and we had some remote developers. No problem.

On the other hand, there are embedded systems that are for 3D printing spaceship hulls. I kind of suspect that remote isn't going to fly for working on those systems...

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#25

Post by joezydeco »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #22
kierank wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the industry I am in (multimedia) is slowly getting invaded by all the awful embedded development practices, binary blobs, custom forks, hacks galore. It's ruining an area where there was clean code, no blobs. Also Linus' ARM rant for good measure: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/15/133 And imagine the stuff they didn't upstream...I'm sure that's part of some magic SDK that only works on one version of gli…

what is the „multimedia“ industry, and does it run along the data highway?

I think it involves CD-ROMs

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#26

Post by joezydeco »

kierank wrote: post #18
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seems to miss the part where it's ok to create terrible software in embedded As opposed to the absolute perfection that is modern web, enterprise and mobile SW? >But it's all fine as it shaves a few cents from the BOM. Every engineering job, including SW development, works to reduce material costs and automate away other jobs. Why do you feel embedded development is somehow worse here?

Embedded development is substantially worse when it comes to out of tree unmaintainable kernel patches, compiler forks, binary blobs around terrible hardware etc etc. Completely incomparable to web, enterprise and mobile (android and co is a part of the embedded trashfire of course). They all have their problems but are minor league compared to embedded development hell. Embedded development takes BoM reduction to th…

I wake up smiling every morning that I don't have to worry if some npm fuckup is going to blow up my project or disable it in production.

The grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence.

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#27

Post by iMario »

PAPPPmAc wrote: post #12

I teach a sophomore-level class for electrical and computer engineering majors out of the Valvano materials, we put references to the chapters in both the free online and later inexpensive print version in our materials. It's great in many ways, and free-to-cheap which is a particularly nice quality in a textbook, but it is _quite_ out of date at this point: it's tied to the old "ARM Compiler v5" bespoke compiler rat…

Very interesting... are your materials available?

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#29

Post by PAPPPmAc »

iMario wrote: post #27
PAPPPmAc wrote: post #12

I teach a sophomore-level class for electrical and computer engineering majors out of the Valvano materials, we put references to the chapters in both the free online and later inexpensive print version in our materials. It's great in many ways, and free-to-cheap which is a particularly nice quality in a textbook, but it is _quite_ out of date at this point: it's tied to the old "ARM Compiler v5" bespoke compiler rat…

Very interesting... are your materials available?

Unfortunately it's mostly locked up in a university CMS, and I haven't put copies out on the public 'net partly just to slightly obscure the semester to semester changes we make to throw off lazy cheaters.

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#30

Post by aidenn0 »

kierank wrote: post #18
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seems to miss the part where it's ok to create terrible software in embedded As opposed to the absolute perfection that is modern web, enterprise and mobile SW? >But it's all fine as it shaves a few cents from the BOM. Every engineering job, including SW development, works to reduce material costs and automate away other jobs. Why do you feel embedded development is somehow worse here?

Embedded development is substantially worse when it comes to out of tree unmaintainable kernel patches, compiler forks, binary blobs around terrible hardware etc etc. Completely incomparable to web, enterprise and mobile (android and co is a part of the embedded trashfire of course). They all have their problems but are minor league compared to embedded development hell. Embedded development takes BoM reduction to th…

> android and co is a part of the embedded trashfire of course

I don't consider e.g. Android phones to be embedded. A smartphone is much more like a small laptop. That being said, there is a sliding scale; e.g. car infotainment systems have properties of both embedded and non-embedded software.

Post reply on HN