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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

#481

Post by c3bkr »

wink wrote: post #316
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…

Matches my experience 100%. I'm a Software Developer in Germany and more than half of the EEs I know went into software because it was better money and a lot more available jobs, which might be even more important. We don't get Silicon Valley money here after all. Oh, and also the scale I guess. I worked at a startup that did Hardware + Software. One hardware team (6-8 people), 5 software teams (~50 people).

Software is not even paid that well in Germany, I can't imagine EE salaries. There probably are some well-paid engineering positions for EEs there but mostly in very hard-to-get positions at Daimler, BMW, Bosch etc. Typical engineer is forced to work at a very low paying Mittelstand.

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

#482

Post by dougabug »

est31 wrote: post #340
dougabug wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This saturation of demand for software talent has been predicted for literally decades. In 1992, Ed Yourdon published “Decline and Fall of the American Programmer,” only to reverse himself four years later with the publication of “Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer.” If anything, the rate at which capable software professionals can create value has dramatically increased over time. Software is not a zer…

Frontier is a good term because just as the US frontier age eventually ended, the software frontier expansion is also eventually going to stop.

I don’t mean frontier as in “the American Western Frontier.” I meant frontier as in, “the frontiers of human knowledge.” It’s not clear to me that the latter is limited in the way that the former is.

Creation of knowledge products both facilitates the further production of new knowledge products and expands the scope of new knowledge products which can be created. This process is like a chain reaction where the potential energy unleashed may ultimately exceed any practical scale modern economics has meaningfully considered.

Software costs almost nothing to deploy, even on a global scale, versus its potential value delivered; and it can be created or improved with almost no additional consumption of resources vs (the programmer) simply existing.

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

#483

Post by plaguepilled »

I think there's actually an engineering reason for this shift to "soft" tech: the workflow for software development is way better (at least IMO).

There is just so much more information available and so many nicer tools available for the fledgeling developer. You have a huge library of languages, frameworks, tutorials and open source projects that need another pair of hands. This makes a difference when community and quick learning is desirable.

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

#484

Post by plaguepilled »

dcolkitt wrote: post #145
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…

If you think that’s bad, just wait until you see what salaries look like for postdocs in theoretical physics. The economy does not reward people for how smart they are, how impressive their credentials are, or how hard their skills were to learn. It rewards people who solve problems. Preferably problems that other rich people have. Many, many, many more rich people have website problems than PCB circuit board problem…

Was going to post almost the exact same thing. Income is, sadly, an exchange of assets and services, not a reward for being good at a thing.

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

#486

Post by Workaccount2 »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #451
Workaccount2 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real issue is that software is way overpriced.

Software is underpriced for the value it generates.

So is everything else, you just take it for granted at this point.

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

#487

Post by raverbashing »

philwelch wrote: post #472
notch656a wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not 'looking up the part code' it's identifying components that have level and drive compatibility, fanout and timing requirements met, acceptable internal and parasitic inductance/capacitance/resistance. Checking if the nets are still theoretically a wire and not a transmission line, that ringing isn't degrading intended application, that the final output of the logic can actually drive the output of the logic…

Do individual logic gates even have part numbers anymore? In my EE labs in college we had FPGA’s.

"Kids these days" ;)

Yes, I think now it's mostly the 74AHC, 74ALVC, some 74ALS/74HC families (maybe others) Depends on the application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7400-series_integrated_circuit...

(using the fpga is fine, but I'd probably want to focus on the circuit itself ant not something like VHDL at first)

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

#488

Post by Unklejoe »

philwelch wrote: post #472
notch656a wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not 'looking up the part code' it's identifying components that have level and drive compatibility, fanout and timing requirements met, acceptable internal and parasitic inductance/capacitance/resistance. Checking if the nets are still theoretically a wire and not a transmission line, that ringing isn't degrading intended application, that the final output of the logic can actually drive the output of the logic…

Do individual logic gates even have part numbers anymore? In my EE labs in college we had FPGA’s.

They're still used sometimes for low level ancillary board functionality. Like, controlling reset lines going to SoC's, etc.

It's actually something that an EE may end up using in their career quite often if they're doing board design.

Though, we normally use CPLDs for that kind of stuff now, but if you can get away with a few logic chips, maybe it can simplify the design.

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

#489

Post by c3bkr »

ghostpepper wrote: post #377
rowanG077 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waving hi as a a SE that is moving partially into EE. It's definitely more challenging. Mostly because the tools are really utter shit.

Would be interested to hear a bit more about your experience. Is your software experience with low level firmware/ kernel stuff? Are you finding the math for EE hard to pick up?

What math do EEs actually use? I have an EE degree and I didn't find the math content in it particularly daunting and in the actual EE courses I felt hardly any math was used beyond at most basic calculus.

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

#490

Post by Banana699 »

moonchrome wrote: post #338
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It requires above average: [...] Literally all those traits you listed are needed as an EE(and in many other white collar and blue collar professions too) plus add even more scary stuff like advanced math (for PID tuning, system signal processing, system modelling and simulation, etc.), but for way less pay that even a kid making iOS apps who hasn't passed highschool math can out-earn you. So how is that fair? My ex…

>So how is that fair again? Kid making iOS apps provides value to more people with almost no cost compared to EE working on his niche product and involving a bunch of other high cost components and capital investment to get to market.

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