Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware?

#91

Post by BitsAndObjects » Wed, Feb 18, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #80

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #30

* The fact that there are comments misunderstanding the article, that are talking about PCB Design rather than (Silicon) Chip Design, speaks to the problem facing the chip industry. Total lack of wider awareness and many misunderstandings. * Chip design pays better than software in many cases and many places (US and UK included; but excluding comparisons to Finance/FinTech software, unless you happen to be in hardwar…

Are all positions onsite for these kind of jobs?

It varies a lot by company and by role.

Most jobs in the architecture/modelling/design/verification roles are basically like software roles (in terms of working patterns / work environment). So, fully remote, hybrid and fully on-site are all possibilities. Hybrid (1-3 days per week in-office) is probably the most common arrangement I've come across in the UK.

If you're moving into stuff like physical design then you start to get involved in chip bring-up, in which case you need to be in a lab which you're unlikely to be able to build at home. That's when on-site starts to become a requirement.

Re: Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware?

#92

Post by IshKebab » Wed, Feb 18, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

acuozzo wrote: post #35

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PCB Design != Chip Design. The article was about chip design. Not trying to stop you debating the merits and shortcomings of PCB Design roles, just pointing out you may be discussing very very different jobs.

I'm talking about chip design: Verilog, VHDL, et al. Very specifications-driven and easily tested. Very easy to outsource if you have a domestic engineer write the spec and test suite. Mind you, I am not talking about IP-sensitive chip design or anything novel. I am talking about iterative improvements to well-known and solved problems e.g., a next generation ADC with slightly less output ripple.

> easily tested.

Definitely not. You do normally have pretty good specifications, but the level of testing required is much higher than software.

> Very easy to outsource

The previous company I was in tried to outsource some directed C tests. It did not go well. It's easy to outsource but it's even easier to get worthless tests back.

Re: Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware?

#93

Post by georgeburdell » Wed, Feb 18, 2026, 4:36 PM UTC

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #30

* The fact that there are comments misunderstanding the article, that are talking about PCB Design rather than (Silicon) Chip Design, speaks to the problem facing the chip industry. Total lack of wider awareness and many misunderstandings. * Chip design pays better than software in many cases and many places (US and UK included; but excluding comparisons to Finance/FinTech software, unless you happen to be in hardwar…

Software pays better, which is why so many hardware people switched, including myself. In my group, which is mixed between the two, my software job classification nets me a higher bonus and easier promotions

Edit: also never have to stay late to rework components on dozens of eval boards, and also never have to talk with manufacturers 10 timezones away

Re: Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware?

#94

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Feb 18, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #30

* The fact that there are comments misunderstanding the article, that are talking about PCB Design rather than (Silicon) Chip Design, speaks to the problem facing the chip industry. Total lack of wider awareness and many misunderstandings. * Chip design pays better than software in many cases and many places (US and UK included; but excluding comparisons to Finance/FinTech software, unless you happen to be in hardwar…

I was going to see if I could quote some job postings from my employer to compare this, and then discovered that even the intranet jobs board does not have salary ranges posted. Sigh. Going to have to feed that back to someone.

> Software engineers make great digital logic verification engineers. They can also gradually be trained to do design too. There are significant and valuable skill and knowledge crossovers.

> Software engineers lack the knowledge to learn analogue design / verification, and there’s little to no knowledge-crossover.

Yes. These are much more specific skills than HN expects, you need an EE degree or equivalent to do analogue IC design while you do not to do software.

However I think the very specific-ness is a problem. If you train yourself in React you might not have the highest possible salary but you'll never be short of job postings. There are really not a lot of analogue designers, they have fairly low turnover, and you would need to work in specific locations. If the industry contracts you are in trouble.

Re: Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware?

#95

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 18, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

georgeburdell wrote: post #93

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #30

* The fact that there are comments misunderstanding the article, that are talking about PCB Design rather than (Silicon) Chip Design, speaks to the problem facing the chip industry. Total lack of wider awareness and many misunderstandings. * Chip design pays better than software in many cases and many places (US and UK included; but excluding comparisons to Finance/FinTech software, unless you happen to be in hardwar…

Software pays better, which is why so many hardware people switched, including myself. In my group, which is mixed between the two, my software job classification nets me a higher bonus and easier promotions Edit: also never have to stay late to rework components on dozens of eval boards, and also never have to talk with manufacturers 10 timezones away

[deleted]

Re: Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware?

#96

Post by waynesonfire » Wed, Feb 18, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

georgeburdell wrote: post #93

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #30

* The fact that there are comments misunderstanding the article, that are talking about PCB Design rather than (Silicon) Chip Design, speaks to the problem facing the chip industry. Total lack of wider awareness and many misunderstandings. * Chip design pays better than software in many cases and many places (US and UK included; but excluding comparisons to Finance/FinTech software, unless you happen to be in hardwar…

Software pays better, which is why so many hardware people switched, including myself. In my group, which is mixed between the two, my software job classification nets me a higher bonus and easier promotions Edit: also never have to stay late to rework components on dozens of eval boards, and also never have to talk with manufacturers 10 timezones away

Maybe the grass-is-greener on the other side applies here, but, I would find it a privildeg to be in a position where I could take a pay-cut and work on hardware.

Also, I'm not convinced hardware pays less, I would just do it for less pay.

Re: Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware?

#97

Post by butterbomb » Wed, Feb 18, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #30

* The fact that there are comments misunderstanding the article, that are talking about PCB Design rather than (Silicon) Chip Design, speaks to the problem facing the chip industry. Total lack of wider awareness and many misunderstandings. * Chip design pays better than software in many cases and many places (US and UK included; but excluding comparisons to Finance/FinTech software, unless you happen to be in hardwar…

I knew a guy who was a digital verification engineer for intel. He was unceremoniously laid off and ended up taking work doing some sort of compliance at a very low paying state agency I was a developer at.

Pretty sharp guy, we worked together a few times on problems far outside both our responsibilities/domain. I always wondered why he ended up taking that gig. Must have been horrible doing compliance work on what was likely at least a 100% pay cut.

Re: Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware?

#98

Post by butterbomb » Wed, Feb 18, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

georgeburdell wrote: post #93

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #30

* The fact that there are comments misunderstanding the article, that are talking about PCB Design rather than (Silicon) Chip Design, speaks to the problem facing the chip industry. Total lack of wider awareness and many misunderstandings. * Chip design pays better than software in many cases and many places (US and UK included; but excluding comparisons to Finance/FinTech software, unless you happen to be in hardwar…

Software pays better, which is why so many hardware people switched, including myself. In my group, which is mixed between the two, my software job classification nets me a higher bonus and easier promotions Edit: also never have to stay late to rework components on dozens of eval boards, and also never have to talk with manufacturers 10 timezones away

> Software pays better, which is why so many hardware people switched

Something I noticed years ago browsing jobs in random large companies:

hardware or anything close to hardware (firmware, driver dev, etc.) was all outsourced. Every single job I saw in that domain was in India or China/Taiwan.

High level software jobs (e.g. node.js developer to develop the web front end for some hardware device) were still in the US.

I’ve wondered if thats impacted why so many hardware people ran off to software.

Re: Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware?

#99

Post by hearsathought » Wed, Feb 18, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC

BitsAndObjects wrote: post #30

* The fact that there are comments misunderstanding the article, that are talking about PCB Design rather than (Silicon) Chip Design, speaks to the problem facing the chip industry. Total lack of wider awareness and many misunderstandings. * Chip design pays better than software in many cases and many places (US and UK included; but excluding comparisons to Finance/FinTech software, unless you happen to be in hardwar…

> * Chip design pays better than software in many cases

You are comparing the narrowest niche of hardware engineering to the broad software profession overall?

> (US and UK included; but excluding comparisons to Finance/FinTech software, unless you happen to be in hardware for those two sectors)

How many hardware jobs are in the finance/fintech sector? I've never anyone working on hardware in finance nor have I seen a job posting for one. And I doubt the highest paid hardware engineer is making remotely close to what the highest paid software engineer in finance is making.

> but I think it is more a symptom than it is a cause.

Or parents, industry professionals, college professors/advisors, etc advise students on future job prospects and students choose accordingly.

Re: Can a Computer Science Student Be Taught to Design Hardware?

#100

Post by RealityVoid » Wed, Feb 18, 2026, 6:03 PM UTC

cfd456 wrote: post #88

RealityVoid wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and now lets count the number of companies that can put up the capital for tape-out: amd, intel, arm, nvidia, meta, aws, google chips, apple, and lets say plus 50 for fintechs, startups, and other 'smaller' orgs. And basically anyone who has a job in tech [1] or someone who just pulled their salary out of the ATM has enough money to do a tapeout with the cash in their hand [2] or chinese students for basically free…

3 designers per silicon org is a ludicrous underestimate

Yes, one of the ludicrous statements. I would invite him to take a look at OpenTitan for example and see how many designers work there on that thing.