YASA, Oxford: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31701133
UK's hardware talent is being wasted
821–830 of 1001 posts
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#822> The reality for most graduates is even grimmer: > • £25,000 starting salaries at traditional engineering firms > • Exodus to consulting or finance just because it's compensated better This is _exactly_ my career so far. The key thing about the British economy is that while most things operate in a free market, construction is centrally planned by councillors who are incentivised to block most development. So the wh…
This is a disease that has infected the entire West. It's just become impossible to do anything that requires space. Even industrial giants like Germany are now de-industrializing because it's just too hard to get permits for building anything new. Sure, labor costs, energy costs, environmental regulations, etc. are all bothersome, but what really makes German industry emigrate is how hard it is to get permission to change anything. It's such a self-inflicted wound.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#823Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The difference between someone designing a part in cad and someone designing the tool paths for the machine that makes the part in cam is night and day. I remember, in a CNC programming class, the instructor calling out one of the students on a lathe program: "One millimeter increments?! What material do you think you are using? Styrofoam?!". That class is where I feel in love with the ASR-33 teletype and its caden…
> "One millimeter increments?! What material do you think you are using? Styrofoam?!" I'm an EE not a MechE but I'd be truly curious to know if there are any MechE programs where a fresh graduate would have ever heard the term "feeds & speeds". In a similar vein, I learned to solder in EE but not because of any of my course work. We were lucky enough to have an aerospace electronics manufacturer situated on the north…
My brother, who graduated 2024 in MechE is aware of the term “feeds & speeds”.
Mechanical engineering is a pretty broad discipline covering everything from micro fluidics to structural requirements of sky scrapers. It’s a good skill to have but I’m not sure that awareness of operating a milling machine is critical for success after graduation.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#824Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bit of a distance to go for a pint in the evening. Isn't JLR in Solihull? That's two hours from London.
> Isn't JLR in Solihull? That's two hours from London. Not 100% sure, I'm from the middle of nowhere, sorry, Derby - where Rolls Royce is primarily based. I know there's peak-time, non-stop, trains between London/Derby that take about an hour. I know this because when I got my first job in London, I still hadn't found a place to stay, so I was commuting from Derby to London every day. And when I finally moved to Lond…
It's 89 minutes minimum from Derby to London. The fastest trains stop once, in Leicester.
It's also £135 off-peak return, so a night out in Birmingham might be more appealing.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#825The same can be said almost anywhere. The big issue is that businesses often offshore work to save on labor costs rather than to improve the quality of their products.
This problem is significant, and here’s why: consider yourself of average intelligence. Now think about how many people are below that level. Then consider those above your level of intelligence and start dividing them further by demographics, age, profession, interests, and so on. What you’re left with is an alarming realization—only about 0.1–0.2% of the global population may truly excel in your skilled profession. Education helps, but it doesn’t define one’s ability.
Unfortunately, this also means that many people end up in professions they are not suited for, including CEOs who shouldn’t be in those roles. It’s a sobering thought, and when you really consider it, it’s a bit crazy to think about.
Sometimes that talent pools in different part of the world too.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#826This is spot on. All the smart and ambitious people I know who studied (non-software) Engineering at university in the UK have ended up going into software engineering via self-teaching or finance/consulting because the only hardware engineering career paths seem to be working for Rolls Royce in the middle of nowhere with terrible pay, or alternatively working at Jaguar Land Rover in the middle of nowhere with terrib…
Hey now you could also go and work for Airbus...but it does mean having to go to Stevenage, as well as getting terrible pay.
A friend works for Airbus Germany but at Warton, lives in a nice bit of Bolton.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#827Earlier quoted context omitted.
Under-rated comment. This is basically the whole explanation. 2008 did a huge amount of damage, not just immediately but to long-term mindsets. Ironically I think it's even entrenched the meme that the only real way to make money in the UK is property. We're all Georgists now. (this includes property as an export industry! Leaving increasing areas of the UK owned by overseas absentee landlords.)
The problem is that people think property is a risk free way of making money - even if they borrow heavily to invest. Maybe what we need is a property price crash.
We could start applying capital gains tax to a primary residence.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#828Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's fair. UC and the NHS are far from ideal, but, compared to the US, they are heaven.
I think that needs to be qualified heavily — salaries in the UK are much lower both in nominal and PPP terms, so there's much less opportunity to build one's own safety net, and the NHS is overwhelmingly focused on providing care for the elderly. To a young(ish) startup founder, the presence of the NHS and UC makes little to no difference.
This is true. People associate a safety net with healthcare, but young and healthy startup founders are more worried about making rent or mortgage payments if their startup should fail.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#829> Sarah: Built a fusion reactor at 16. Now? Debugging fintech payment systems. It's striking to imagine a fully functional fusion reactor that could benefit humanity, yet its creator now focuses on fintech payment systems. This highlights the importance of a strong middle class, which seems to be declining globally. A thriving middle class, with disposable income and free time, creates the conditions for innovation.…
Are these real examples? I was curious, and all I could find it: https://newsforkids.net/articles/2024/09/04/16-year-old-stud... They are not working in Fintech AFAIK.
They seem believable to me, as a graduate of the same university.
I have friends from Imperial College who now work at ESA, Los Alamos, quantum computer research etc, but also others working in banks, hedge funds or adtech.
Top of my computer science class is working at a hedge fund, number two is working at a fintech startup.
It's on their website, even specifically for electrical engineers (since that's the topic)
- 22% working in manufacturing
- 16% in IT
- 25% in finance
- 16% professional / scientific / technical
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/administra... via https://www.imperial.ac.uk/careers/plan-your-career/destinat...
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#830That's a really good article!
Do you want to know a bit more?
Ukraine hardware best talents -> 18k/year. Belarus best hardware talents -> 6k/year Some part of Russia best hardware talents -> 14k/year
Eastern Europe -> hardware talent is basically free