91–100 of 536 posts
Pay more and get more talent. If a local web startup is paying 2x, 3x, 5x more money for some html and css (and/or whatever language of the week is for the backend), than companies like Intel are paying for serious hardware knowledge, it's no wonder people don't choose this profession.
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…
Engineering processes are very well developed and therefore less leadership is expected out of the ICs.
I mostly troubleshoot this dreadful old C# application these days. At this point, you almost couldn't pay me to do it. And I don't have any better prospects with the great depression 2 coming up
I am a chemical engineer by education and I am also part of this problem. It did not take me very long at all to figure out where the actual money is and transition to full time software development.
The tools for EEs are old, creaky, text-based stuff from the DOS days. Time to finally turn EE into a software discipline. Then some decent tools will be developed and normal folk will be willing to design stuff.
A poor workman blames his tools.
It isn't implying that a good workman has the skills to work wonders with bad tools, it's that a good workman will make damn sure they won't have bad tools to begin with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because real engineers become hyper-specialists and get trapped. My one my high school classmates was a mechanical engineer who was one of the top guys for some semiconductor process that failed to scale and got abandoned. Got laid off and was unemployable. He sold herballife to go back to school and is a physical therapist now. It happens in software too. Plenty of sad tales of geezers let go from banks and governme…
This doesn’t ring true to me, especially for an ME which is one of the broadest disciplines. I know one who had a BS and has worked in construction on building automation and energy systems, automotive robotics, healthcare as a process engineer, aerospace software, and finally as a data scientist.
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…
Tinkering with junk to develop an interest in real electrical engineering: Totally resonates. Personal recollection from 1983-84 or so follows. We had a broken black-and-white TV that was mined out for parts (tubes, resistors, capacitors etc) but the front shell with the CRT, high voltage anode connector and deflection coils remained. How do we make this light up again with teenager-accessible loose parts? What can g…
For the next generation it'll be 'hey, let's pull this tv apart', 'oh the chassis intrusion sensor tripped and every single IC inside it packed a tantrum and will now refuse to work without the vendor's $10k/mo software subscription'.
Pay more and get more talent. If a local web startup is paying 2x, 3x, 5x more money for some html and css (and/or whatever language of the week is for the backend), than companies like Intel are paying for serious hardware knowledge, it's no wonder people don't choose this profession.
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…