HACKER Q&A
📣 silustech

What do software developers think of embedded/firmware?


I'm curious to know more about the experiences of anyone who has overlapped between embedded (e.g. firmware, Bluetooth, IoT, hardware) and more conventional software (e.g. front-end, data, reliability).

Are there any particular pain points experienced around the embedded or hardware world? Do you find any tools useful to overcome any friction?

  👤 ostenning Accepted Answer ✓
Ive got an EE education, so i was exposed to hw and embedded a long time ago, but where I used to live there weren’t many EE or embedded jobs going, so I got a job as general swdev. It was great, allowed me to work for companies in different countries and had a nice minimalist aesthetic to only needing a laptop to do my work.

But I got disenfranchised with working for VC funded web companies and burnout hard and decided to get back into hardware and embedded engineering. I had to relearn lots from my years at university, especially for analog electronics. It’s definitely more technical work, has a higher “intellect” barrier (often larger companies want Masters) and there are less jobs, but the work itself is infinitely more satisfying for me.

I love being able to design a product from the ground up, it really feels like a magical experience to create something tangiably real.

As far as tools go, YouTube is your friend for anything hardware related. So many amazing YouTube channels dedicated to PCB design that are an invaluable resource (Phils Lab etc).

For software - Rust. Its a game changer to use a modern language in an embedded context. While I still use C for some IoT freelancing and it does the job, especially with so many RTOS available, rust is def worth the investment.

Pain-points; Complex driver development and testing. Testing is a different beast with embedded, especially integration tests. Then there is hw testing, and thats a whole different ball game.