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What does a firmware engineer do?

What are the upsides and downsides of an Electrical Engineer accepting a software job?

  • I am an electrical Master's student concentrating on a career in embedded systems/firmware engineering. A lot of my projects have been about circuits with no scarcity of embedded programming (Java, SystemC, Embedded C, Assembly, Verilog, SystemVerilog). Primarily, I am an electrical engineer (with a bit of experience in VLSI and power too) rather than a computer scientist/ IT person. However, I recently received an internship offer for a software engineering position at an IT firm. Pay is decent, but company is a lesser-known one; as an EE person would it be worth it?

  • Answer:

    I have two brothers-in-law who have done exactly that, minus the MS degree part.  They have computer engineering degrees, and their work is almost exclusively software. Unless there are lots of other opportunities available, take the opportunity now.  The worst that could happen would be that you start slipping in your knowledge of whatever is unrelated to your work -- but that's pretty much bound to happen no matter what you pick.  If you learned programming but got a job in ASIC design, you might start losing your edge in programming skills.  So what? Upsides: $$$$ now instead of having to wait for a firm that employs more people "in your field" to start hiring. It's probably easier to explain your job as "I'm a programmer" than to explain pretty much any other engineering job.  (I have a hard time explaining my job to people, especially since it's in the marketing department but I'm not a marketer/salesperson and I'm still highly technical.) If you have done programming, you probably won't hate the job. It's experience.  Maybe it will give you a chance to learn something outside of your study and make you more marketable in your future career. Downsides: You won't immediately be recognized as an expert in your job.  But then again, extremely few people are and you'll feel like a n00b when you start at any job. It may not use all the knowledge you have built up in your studies.  No job will, but perhaps this job will be a little further outside of what you studied than another job.

Jacob VanWagoner at Quora Visit the source

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I have a degree in electrical engineering, and am currently employed as a software engineer. I my experience, my study program covered too many different fields to be able to become an expert. In fact, there was barely any software classes in the curriculum. Nonetheless, my employer was eager to offer me a contract. Why? Because getting a degree shows that I'm capable of solving complex problems and learning new things. Admittedly, my current job doesn't require me to know about design patterns and many other typical computer science expertise, but my employer is confident that I can pick up new things as I need them. The upside, in my opinion, is therfore that you can learn new things in this job. Learning new things is good for you. The downside might be that you move away from the fields that interested you when you started your studies. But, truth be told, I know very few people that are still employed in the field of their studies after a few years. Conclusion: if the job genuinely interests you, take it.

Ludo Visser

I'm speaking here as an electrical engineering graduate who works as a software engineer. The simple answer is take the internship if you want to become a software engineer more than you want to be an electrical engineer. Other factors like salary, job security, job availability will be similar in the two fields and should be non-factors when picking between software engineering and electrical engineering because you will be well paid and in demand in both. Read Patrick McKenzie's article about engineering careers for more advice: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/.

Gopi Vajravelu

My earliest work was on digital and microprocessor circuit design and validation; quickly became firmware, then operating system software, then applications. At this point it's very rare for me to design a circuit, but pretty common for me to architect a software system. I don't feel like I've missed out on anything by taking this path.

Christopher Burke

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