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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

#301

Post by pid-1 »

dmikalova wrote: post #72

My friend is an EE that I went to school with. He's very bright and definitely sharper and harder working than me. I went to school for Chemistry and switched to DevOps - which are the not the highest paid of SEs. I make 1.5x what he does. I help run a package tracking dashboard. He ensures power systems for millions of people work flawlessly in all conditions. He's looking to quit the industry because its so hopeles…

I'm also an EE who started my career ar a sysadmin and went to Cloud / DevOps later.

My long term plan was to switch to SE, but DevOps jobs are absolutely on fire rn.

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

#302

Post by tluyben2 »

I did an EE degree first, then CS; I like EE and I enjoy the tinkering. My father taught me electronics since I was young (5) and I always like the smell of soldering and my hands have many battle scars. However, cs always paid so much more that I lost electronics for a while until I worked on smarter-payment card product and the other payment products we did. It was a lot of fun prototyping and optimising every cpu cycle and memory storage bit to push down the cost 1 cent at a time, but also being able to swap in and out parts to save more costs and make it more robust and better quality. I wish I could do it fulltime but SE just pays a lot more, especially as senior and I also like that a lot.

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

#303

Post by marssaxman »

ChrisRR wrote: post #252
nebula8804 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget low level embedded programmers, Kernel developers, and many who live in the world of coding in C/ASM. I recall numerous instances in my undergraduate career where professors and the students passionate in these fields would actively persuade people who didn't get exposes to the stuff from even trying. I remember one professor teaching an elective class on the Linux kernel and how he would try his best to…

We are currently having a hell of a time trying to hire embedded developers We're looking for bare metal developers so basic SPI, I2C, UART knowledge is essential, but even in that realm it's surprising how many embedded devs can't work outside of an RTOS and lack basic hardware knowledge

I love bare metal work, and part of me would love to go back to it, but it's really hard to justify: hardware product cycles are extremely slow, full-time remote positions are unheard-of, and pay is no more than half of what you can get for much cushier work in the software world. It makes more sense as a hobby than a profession.

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

#304

Post by golemarms »

nosianu wrote: post #299
yobbo wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was lack of supply and excess demand, it would show in higher pay.

I generally agree and I'm one of those responding similarly in similar contexts. However, thinking about it, I think there may be a valve here that prevents this from happening: If costs get too high Asian companies win, setting an upper bound. So it may show up in more outsourcing and imports rather than higher pay. I have not completely thought this through, so I'm posting it as a condensation nucleus for discussio…

> If costs get too high Asian companies win

Wouldn't this apply to software companies as well? Yet we see higher pay, rather than imports/outsourcing.

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

#305

Post by adenozine »

As it almost always goes: pay people better. Deep down, we know capitalism doesn’t really work and we’re stuck playing this stupid game for now, and that means individuals have to look out for their own bottom line. If EE wants better supply, they must pay more.

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

#306

Post by bowsamic »

nebula8804 wrote: post #240
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.…

Don't forget low level embedded programmers, Kernel developers, and many who live in the world of coding in C/ASM. I recall numerous instances in my undergraduate career where professors and the students passionate in these fields would actively persuade people who didn't get exposes to the stuff from even trying. I remember one professor teaching an elective class on the Linux kernel and how he would try his best to…

I had professors like that in physics but it was more of a comedic stunt than anything. Being scared of your course is something very relatable, so I thought it was quite entertaining to have a comical lecturer who was very humorous and yet brutal about the course. In the end the lecturer I had that was the most brutal about the course content of ended up not being a particularly bad exam.

If it’s not paired with humour though, it can be quite horrible

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

#307

Post by irjustin »

negative_zero wrote: post #250

I will just add to the chorus here: * I graduated as a Computer Engineer. * Worked as EE/EEE entire career (currently almost 14 years). * Half of my class of EEs and CEs went into other careers immediately after graduation because money was better. * 10 years later my best conservative estimate (based on sampling from friends from my year) is that at least another quarter has left because money. * I have mainly worke…

Yeah at some point the market has to correct itself.

There's no way guys like Intel/AMD can keep this up.

"Can't afford" simply isn't true given our insane need for chips.

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

#308

Post by ghaff »

fxtentacle wrote: post #246
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.…

In my opinion, the issue is that all of the EE work went to China. It's very difficult to find a company in the west where you could go to do an engineering apprenticeship and learn how to build cool stuff, because all of them outsourced their "building cool stuff" operations years ago. And designing things when you cannot try out your design (or when you need to wait 2 weeks for a parcel from China for each attempt)…

It happened with a fair bit of mechanical engineering stuff too. (Or it went away.) For example, there used to be a huge disk drive industry in the US. Not just the big "commodity" drive suppliers but every minicomputer company used to design and build its own disk (and tape) drives.

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

#309

Post by rmbyrro »

christophilus wrote: post #296
negative_zero wrote: post #250

I will just add to the chorus here: * I graduated as a Computer Engineer. * Worked as EE/EEE entire career (currently almost 14 years). * Half of my class of EEs and CEs went into other careers immediately after graduation because money was better. * 10 years later my best conservative estimate (based on sampling from friends from my year) is that at least another quarter has left because money. * I have mainly worke…

I don’t understand how the market dynamics work here. As a software engineer, I feel like the market is flooded with workers, and that it is an easy job. I have no idea how we’ve managed to sustain these salaries for so long. At some point, I keep expecting a correction in salaries simply due to supply / demand. I also keep thinking, surely other industries will start paying more and treating folks better, so they ca…

You may find SE an easy job, but it isn't for most people.

It requires above average:

- Working memory capacity

- Tolerance to extreme frustration, persistence

- Ability to learn fast

- Capacity to deal with particularly high incidence of imposter syndrome

- I could keep going all day...

SE is not overpaid. I actually think it's underpaid. Above all, the profession pushes for an early retirement.

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

#310

Post by throwaway4345 »

christophilus wrote: post #296
negative_zero wrote: post #250

I will just add to the chorus here: * I graduated as a Computer Engineer. * Worked as EE/EEE entire career (currently almost 14 years). * Half of my class of EEs and CEs went into other careers immediately after graduation because money was better. * 10 years later my best conservative estimate (based on sampling from friends from my year) is that at least another quarter has left because money. * I have mainly worke…

I don’t understand how the market dynamics work here. As a software engineer, I feel like the market is flooded with workers, and that it is an easy job. I have no idea how we’ve managed to sustain these salaries for so long. At some point, I keep expecting a correction in salaries simply due to supply / demand. I also keep thinking, surely other industries will start paying more and treating folks better, so they ca…

> As a software engineer, I feel like the market is flooded with workers, and that it is an easy job

I think you overestimate the quality of median software engineer. Even at a company like Amazon, I think something like 20% engineers can barely code. Add to that industry expectation to work independently with little guidance and not that many people who will fit the bill.

There are lots of junior engineers, who with guidance and mentoring can actually flourish but your average "move fast" startup won't invest in them.

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