The salary and development path of hardware engineers

Lightfly201

The salary and development path of hardware engineers [Copy link]

 

LZ is in the second year of graduate school. Although his major is electronics, the application is awkward. It is in the direction of electronic readout for large-scale particle detection. With the economic downturn this year, the job hunting of the seniors in the laboratory is obviously far behind. Last year, it was quite common for large companies to have an annual salary of 400,000 yuan (PhD), but this year, there are almost no large companies recruiting people. Although some large companies have interviews, they require that they have done what they need (more commercial applications, and scientific research projects serve specific projects. This is difficult to control and too much luck). Now I have the opportunity to transfer to a small company in the direction of quantitative finance. Since I have to decide whether to transfer to a doctorate this year, I am very entangled in whether to continue to develop on the path of hardware engineer? After reading a lot of posts, it seems that the development and income of hardware engineers are not as good as software? On the other hand, what we do in our doctoral career is indeed not very commercial application-oriented. If we do it, is embedded system the most popular now?

(I do think that using other people's chips to connect the dots does not have much core technological competitiveness... The most read English material is not IEEE papers but datasheets:))

chenbingjy

Just work

btty038

Work experience plus education is more reliable. I think everything else is fake.

LeoMe

The threshold for hardware is high, and once you get started, your salary is not as high as software engineering. Think about those who study computer science, who can get a starting salary of 8K after one year of Java training after graduation. You will think that those who work in hardware are stupid.

LeoMe

However, the general trend in the past two years is to popularize programming education. Elementary schools have started to learn graphical programming. I wonder if programmers will be like those who studied computers and English before. When technology becomes popular, they may not be worth much. Hardware is relatively stable. After all, look at what graduates draw. Even some so-called hardware engineers who have worked for a few years are still at the stage of "connecting all pads" when drawing PCBs. It is difficult to really enter the industry without a few years. The reason for the low salary of hardware may be that the demand is relatively low and small, especially compared to js front-end design. The Internet makes money quickly. You can open a business by buying a few computers and renting an office. Hardware has slow output and low profits, and there are relatively few companies.

I'm involved in hardware and microcontrollers, and I'm also struggling over whether or not to touch the embedded field. I personally feel that once the underlying layer of embedded systems has been abstracted by the operating system, the remaining applications are software-related, so they're still software.

Then the old saying of the predecessors is that no matter whether it is hard or soft, if you master it, your salary will definitely not be low. Those who work on algorithms and architecture in software and wireless high-frequency and high-power in hardware will not have low salaries.

generalcircuits

LeoMe posted on 2019-9-17 09:10 However, the general trend in the past two years is to popularize programming education. Primary schools have started to engage in graphical programming. I wonder if programmers will learn computing like before...

Hardware is really bad. After graduating from undergraduate school, you won’t learn anything. The teaching content in school is old-fashioned and not close to work, so you will still be a newbie when you graduate. The threshold for learning software is low and you only need to spend 3 months of training. The salary will definitely be higher than that of hardware majors.

LeoMe

generalcircuits Published on 2019-9-19 15:27 Hardware is really bad. After graduating from undergraduate school, you can't learn anything. The teaching content of the school is old-fashioned and not close to work. After graduating, you are still a novice. It's hard to learn software...

So if I had to choose, I would choose hardware, where the employment situation will not fluctuate greatly. The difficulty of getting started means that the competition may be smaller. Seeing that there are so many colleagues posting in the forum just to ask for a datashee, I feel more at ease.

白丁

The hottest field now should be machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Lightfly201

chenbingjy posted on 2019-9-15 14:15 Just work

Can you get a job directly after graduating with a master's degree?

Lightfly201

Bai Ding posted on 2019-9-20 21:01 The hottest field right now should be machine learning and artificial intelligence

Cover your face, it's the hardware field. I'm not a CS major. It's a bit costly to change direction now.

Lightfly201

LeoMe posted on 2019-9-17 09:10 However, the general trend in the past two years is to popularize programming education. Primary schools have started to engage in graphical programming. I wonder if programmers will learn computing like before...

Yes!! I have heard this from seniors a lot. It is true that hardware requires experience. There are also people who are proficient in both FPGA front-end and C++ (very important in software-hardware communication projects). Have you heard this? But I have seen that hardware requires experience on the analog side, and the digital side depends largely on the strength of the purchased chip.

However, I have read a lot of posts and guides in the past two days. It seems that the work intensity of hardware engineers is better than that of software engineers? Overtime is also better (suspected). If experience is really important, there will be good prospects after the age of 35?

Lightfly201

btty038 posted on 2019-9-16 10:25 Work experience plus academic qualifications are more reliable. I think everything else is fake.

Yes, so when the company recruits PhDs, the HR said it’s not that they don’t want to, but they need to train them after they are hired. PhDs get paid but also need to be trained on specific projects, so HR is unwilling to recruit people whose directions are not completely consistent (in terms of details, they even require people to have used the chips they use... this is too much of a gamble 233)

Lightfly201

LeoMe posted on 2019-9-20 08:48 So if I had to choose, I would choose hardware, where the employment situation will not fluctuate greatly. The difficulty of getting started means that the competition may be smaller. Look at the forum. There are so many...

Yes... the hardware threshold is very high, oscilloscope, signal source analyzer, FPGA development board... without any of them, you can't do it. You have to learn the schematic diagram, PCB logic, and software costs much less. A computer and a remote server are enough.

chenbingjy

Lightfly201 posted on 2019-9-22 12:20 Can you find a job directly after graduating from a master's degree?

Isn't it possible? I feel the same way. I feel that masters are more powerful now. Their salary is much higher than when I first started working.

Lightfly201

chenbingjy posted on 2019-9-22 17:40 Is it not possible? I feel like that. I feel that the current masters are more powerful. The salary is much higher than when I first started working.

I think it’s good, but we only need to study for 2 more years to get a PhD, so it’s not a loss//laughing and crying