To discuss why the salary of embedded engineers is significantly lower than that of pure software engineers, we first need to examine the differences in the “background” of these two professions. Pure software companies are like swordsmen wielding keyboards, able to start a business with just a few computers and a rented office, packaging their code into installable software for sale, with costs as light as a feather. A classmate of mine worked in an internet company doing backend development, spending every day writing interfaces against a database, with no hardware investment from the company, relying solely on selling memberships and advertisements, yet still receiving substantial year-end bonuses.
But what about embedded development? It feels like carrying a sack of bricks into the world. Take the publicly listed company I previously worked for, which produced IoT devices; just purchasing debugging hardware like oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers cost millions. Not to mention that every time we developed a new product, we had to open molds and produce boards, with trial production costing hundreds of thousands. Once, when developing an industrial router, we had to grit our teeth and rent a comprehensive testing instrument worth over a hundred thousand just to test the stability of the wireless signal, and we only got a discount because of connections with industry leaders. With the company investing so much real money in hardware, how could they afford to be generous with software labor costs?
Going deeper, the profit logic in the embedded industry is completely different from that of pure software. Pure software sells “brain power premium“; a brilliant algorithm or an efficient architecture can support the entire product’s value, so companies are willing to pay high salaries to attract top talent. But embedded companies are essentially “hardware movers”; their profits are hidden in the shipment volume. Take the smart meter project I worked on in Thailand as an example: the software was incredibly simple, with just two interrupt handlers in the main function, and a college student could complete it in two months, but they shipped millions of units, allowing the company to make a fortune from hardware sales. Meanwhile, the software development team? In the eyes of the boss, they are merely an “auxiliary role”; as long as the functionality is somewhat usable, why would they think of offering high salaries?
On the other hand, consider the smart barcode scanner project we did for Honeywell. That involved a deeply customized Android system, modifying the underlying framework, and bringing in several senior engineers for three months of closed development. What was the result? Honeywell couldn’t sell the hardware, and in the end, we only received some R&D fees, not even covering our costs. In such a situation, would the company dare to invest in embedded software again? They would rather buy ready-made solutions from Huaqiangbei than maintain a high-salary software team.
Another harsh reality is that the value of embedded software is too easily “buried” by hardware. Users first look at the appearance and hardware configuration of a device; who cares how elegantly the underlying drivers are written? Just like that popular robotic vacuum cleaner from years ago, where the software team spent half a year optimizing the path planning algorithm, but what consumers remembered was the “suction power and battery life.” In the boss’s mind, software is just an “extra touch”; hardware is the “real money” foundation, so naturally, they are unwilling to offer high prices for software positions.
In short, embedded engineers are like bodyguards traveling with a caravan, ensuring the safe delivery of hardware goods to their destination, but while the caravan makes money, the rewards for the bodyguards are always less than those for the accountants. It’s not that our skills are lacking; it’s just that the cake in this industry is fundamentally skewed towards hardware. If you ask me if I regret working in embedded systems, well, seeing my pure software classmates earning fifty thousand a year, it would be a lie to say I’m not tempted. But our field has the advantage of being “down-to-earth”; after all, every smart device contains the code we write, even if my wallet feels a bit underwhelmed compared to this passion.
