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acuozzo | 12 days ago

> is really just because hardware design is a niche field

Which doesn't pay as well as jobs in software do, unfortunately.

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general1465|12 days ago

Exactly money is problem. I am by trade hardware designer. I have no problem to sit down, create PCB in KiCAD and have it made perfect on first try. But I am doing this just as a hobby because it does not pay much. SWE just pays better even with the AI scarecrow behind it.

IshKebab|12 days ago

Really? In my experience in the UK it pays ~20% better. We're talking about silicon hardware design. Not PCBs.

acuozzo|12 days ago

At least in the US, yes. Check out general1465's reply to me.

The problem, I think, is that there are many competent hardware design engineers available abroad and since hardware is usually designed with very rigorous specs, tests, etc. it's easy to outsource. You can test if the hardware design engineer(s) came up with an adequate design and, if not, refuse payment or demand reimbursement, depending on how the contract is written. It's all very clear-cut and measurable.

Software is still the "Wild West", even with LLMs. It's nebulous, fast-moving, and requires a lot of communication to get close to reaching the maintenance stage.