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

#351

Post by blueblisters » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 12:30 PM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #319

christophilus wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Two things - I don't think it's as easy as you think it is. If you're good at it, it can feel comparatively easy, because when you're good at it and you enjoy it - it's fun . It's flow. You get lost in it and don't realize that you were just working flat out for 12 hours. But there are lots of things that are flow that are not easy. I've been coding since I was 12, I have flow days where it's just an absolute pleasur…

Software engineering is not easy but no profession comes close to software engineering when it comes to the sheer number of high-paying jobs it creates. I think much of the "alpha" comes from being truly cross-disciplinary - all jobs can perhaps eventually be abstracted away into code, including software engineering itself.

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

#352

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 12:31 PM UTC

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…

The market is absolutely not flooded with workers, if you've ever tried to hire people, and that is because it is not an easy job.

There's also a bit of a coordination effect: just as you can't replace Ronaldo with 1,000 cheaper footballers, you can't easily replace one good dev with lots of less good devs.

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

#353

Post by flyingfences » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 12:31 PM UTC

golemarms wrote: post #304

nosianu wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The key difference, I think, is that software is user-facing, whereas hardware no longer is. The bigwigs and bean counters who make the hire-versus-outsource decisions can tell that lowest-bidder outsourced software sucks and so don't go for it, whereas the outsourced hardware "works" well enough to ship, so they keep outsourcing it.

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

#354

Post by saiya-jin » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 12:35 PM UTC

doix wrote: post #286

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…

> To those commenters who say that you need to be bright to be an EE, it is very flattering, but I am obviously not very bright :D I did a CE degree as well. Reading all the comments saying that it's super hard at university makes me feel like my university was really shit. The difficulty in EE exams came from having to solve stupidly long and complex equations by hand in an exam with significant time pressure. Prett…

Ah, I have this experience burned in my skull. My backwardish university, where I started 1999, had SW engineering degree only available on their Faculty of electro engineering and informatics. Historically it has been EE through and through, CE was just an relatively new addition and you could see it on classes.

Even on CE, we had for first 2 years tons of absolutely mandatory EE courses which had 0 relevance to software development. One (Theoretical electrotechnics II) was especially hardcore due to 1) math used was tougher than actual dedicated math courses we had at that time; 2) the professor was an absolute a-hole, I mean proper evil twist in his personality... everybody on whole university hated him, I mean teachers, management, everybody, students were properly scared of him. He was so well known even people on other universities knew him well. But he had some good expertise in some topics so he was tolerated, and he served as biggest student filter on whole faculty.

He literally fired people from whole school (as in last attempt to pass this mandatory course, 2 attempts per year, if failed could repeat next year) in their 3rd year at uni, because of a single dot in whole equation calculation (which was at least 1 A4 per exercise). Dot was just above given variable in equation to give it different meaning than non-dot ones, and pens did often fail us back then (so after solving an example we all tripple-checked all dots were visible where they should be).

He often told girls they shouldn't study EE since its not for them, guys that had long hair that they should get back to their moms, people with hungarian-sounding names that they should go to Hungary etc... He was fired eventually.

If it hadn't been for him, EE would be above-average difficulty but definitely manageable subject. As it was done, one basically done university for CE degree once passing him. And the best thing of all this - he was consistently given only to teach and examine CE people only. EE people had such an easygoing professor that everybody passed it.

Needless to say, I loathed anything EE-related for quite some time. Schools have ways to effectively discourage even good topics to folks like me.

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

#355

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 12:39 PM UTC

irjustin wrote: post #307

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.

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

They can. They're aggressively expanding in Europe and Asia where the EE wages they pay are very good for the local market.

Also, Israel is a major tech hub where Intel, AMD, Apple, Nvidia and others develop plenty of cutting edge tech.

Not everything has to be done in the US with US wages and those companies know it and are taking advantage of it.

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

#356

Post by bob1029 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 12:43 PM UTC

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…

> Have never met an SE moving into EE.

I started out doing EE at UT Austin and never finished because I was a lazy child and had zero awareness of what I was getting myself into. Decided to get a computer "engineering" degree from a cheaper local institution.

Fast forward 15+ years, and I am now responsible for more than I dreamed possible and am considering an EE path as my next steps for when I burn out as a software developer. I still deeply enjoy all of the nuances of electronic devices, how they are made, why they work, etc... I used to work in a semiconductor factory, and might return with a new title some day. I also might go macro and help out with the grid. Both things are still very fascinating to me.

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

#357

Post by analog31 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 12:44 PM UTC

kriro wrote: post #347

christophilus wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think the simplified answer is that software scales really well. So in theory, if I pay one developer really well I can then sell whatever that developer produces a lot of times for virtually no extra cost (and no shipping/logistics). Embedded devices/hardware etc. don't scale nearly that well.

I realize this is a widespread explanation, but it doesn't completely make sense that software is a magic money faucet. The reason is that there's still only so much money that can be spent on software, and at some point the customers run out. I'm not saying it's a zero sum game, but it's not an infinite sum game. Somewhere in between.

The greatest software driven economy in the world grows at an average rate of roughly 2% per year. All of this software, and we're living barely above subsistence. What it suggests to me is that for every company that has turned a software program into a magic money faucet, there are as many if not more who will spend money on software and not make a dime. There will also be as many companies that bury themselves in software costs and wreck themselves.

Software is clearly empowering us. I use Python instead of doing calculations by hand. But it's also draining us. Talk to virtually any office worker, even programmers, and they will complain about the software that they have to deal with, basically stealing their attention and productivity.

Where are the customers' yachts?

A better answer is that the money has to be coming from somewhere other than merely customers, and I think the answer is: Investors.

What hardware doesn't have is investors going gaa-gaa to spend their money on anything that looks like a hardware project.

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

#358

Post by pmontra » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 12:44 PM UTC

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)…

Yep. I was about to ask this question: suppose I was born 20 years ago in a > 0.5 M people city in Europe or North America and I'm into an EE course. I'd be considering my job options for when I graduate. Which companies need an EE around me? As a non EE engineer I can think of one (STMicroelectronics is not far away from where I live.) As CS graduate: almost infinite (of which only slightly less than infinite shitty jobs, for sure.)

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

#359

Post by znpy » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 12:45 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #265

raverbashing wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And right you are! Now the latest trend are MS/PhD only openings. Especially at IC manufacturers But I have two questions for those: why not on-the-job training, and did the people that joined 20/40yrs ago have those qualifications? All of them? Well, good luck filling those positions then! /s

Nowadays we expect people to pay for their own education. No company wants to be the sucker that invested in fleeting human capital.

i had the chance to read "The Juggling Act" by Pat Gelsinger, which is about a lot of things, and among these also about his work at intel.

the thing that struck me the most that a) intel was paying for his tuition b) he used to have enough flexibility to attend classes, in person.

for people who don't know, Pat Gelsinger is the guy behind the intel 386 and 486, and has been recently made CEO of Intel.

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

#360

Post by lordnacho » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 12:45 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #348

lordnacho wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. In uni I got offered internships as part of the course, to write my Master's thesis. An engineering firm in Aerospace offered me a job doing something with airplanes. Pretty interesting, but paid £12K/yr, which really isn't much money, even for a student. I kept my mouth shut (uni wanted us to take whatever came) and got offered a job at a major chip manufacturer, but in marketing. Also interesting, £15…

I had a professor who’s brother worked in finance and he openly admitted his brother sometimes paid more in taxes than he got in salary. So I understand where you’re coming from. And I do think some of that finance work has value. But let me ask, if you had to put a percentage on it, how many of the best and brightest would you want going into finance vs say, medicine or physics? At what point does it tip to being a…

I don't know what the right amount is, but with the numbers being where they are, it just seems like doing any of the jobs that are considered socially useful (doctor/nurse/policeman/research/etc) is simply too big a sacrifice if you have the choice.

You might be right about the prisoner's dilemma: if you are an engineer and you get an offer from the cure for cancer research group, vs potentially 7 figures in a few years, it's going to be awfully hard to save humanity.