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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

#531

Post by someguydave »

bumby wrote: post #350
someguydave wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not working for the highest bidder (money, status, time etc) can be seen as a form of charity. Which company deserves the donation of your life energy?

This confuses the point with “doing work you may not want to do”. I’m saying there are multiple dimensions of finding fulfillment, with money only being a single dimension. The idea that anything outside that single dimension would be considered nothing but charity is telling.

>This confuses the point with “doing work you may not want to do”

No. An example: Maybe you find “fulfilling” work but the pay is half what you could make elsewhere in your job market.

In that case, you should be certain that you are somehow compensated non-monetarily for that “missing half” of your salary. Otherwise you are simply making a donation to the company by working for much less than market-clearing salary.

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

#532

Post by TT-392 »

midoridensha wrote: post #470
TT-392 wrote: post #334

"While computer science course take-up had gone up by over 90 percent in the past 50 years, electrical engineering (EE) had declined by the same amount" Well yes, computer science used to be just a specialization of EE. Not that I don't think the EE scene is a little sad these days (I am currently an EE student) but I think this is important that we don't forget that EE has been split into a bunch of specializations.

>Well yes, computer science used to be just a specialization of EE. Huh? No, it wasn't. CS started out as a specialization in the Math department, since CS is really just an extension of mathematics. EE is very math-heavy compared to other engineering fields, but CS never came from EE though there's a lot of overlap.

A lot of programmers sure came from the EE field

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

#533

Post by gorjusborg »

sentinalien wrote: post #498
gorjusborg wrote: post #365

I graduated as an EE, worked as a digital designer (writing verilog) but the job felt perilous and pay didn’t compensate for that. As a software dev, I can find a job seemingly anywhere. As an digital designer, there seemed to be 10 or so companies I could work at globally. Given the boom/bust cycles the chip industry experiences, and the few employers, the pay should be way higher.

I'm interested in hearing how you found transitioning from digital design to software development and what did you have to study in order to pass software interviews? I've also been a digital design engineer for the past 3-4 years since graduating but I would like to move into software development for my next job. I have some experience programming and a basic knowledge of CS/software topics but presumably not as muc…

My 'strategy' was to take a job that needed software help, but couldn't pay well (university). My idea was to leverage the fact that the university offered free courses to employees, that I would work and backfill the formal education.

I did follow through on that partially, but I found that the hands on experience was more important for employment than the degree, so I still work without a CS degree on my wall.

As far as the leetcode stuff goes, I work for a large company, but I don't work in big tech so largely hasn't been a problem. My first job knew I had skills programming but not formal education, so they didn't grill me. After working there for a while, I had enough work experience and a few contacts that allowed me to pretty much get a written invitation to my next gig. In the companies I've wanted to work for (and I have pretty much decided not to work for MMANG companies and imitators) the emphasis has been on culture fit, experience building solutions, and references. I luckily haven't had to memorize solutions to canned problems to prove my worth.

If I changed my mind and wanted to get the MMANG money/problems, I'd just get a copy of 'cracking the coding interview' and practice up. If you can write working RTL and test benches, you already have the skills to start as a software dev. In my opinion, going back to school would be a waste of time/resources. I am still working to backfill with theory, but I do it in my free time and I know I understand (and enjoy it) more than I would cramming it into a semester class.

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

#534

Post by infinite8s »

bumby wrote: post #528
infinite8s wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the explosion in salaries it's mostly been the last decade, which is coincidentally the decade of near 0 interest rates and capital chasing even more tenuous returns (ie the influx of money into VC funds which went into startups)

In theory, shouldn’t the cheap capital also caused explosion in salaries outside of tech? That didn’t seem to happen over the same time horizon

Well a lot of that capital went into VC funds, and not many VCs are funding things outside of tech.

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

#535

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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