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Career Path for Embedded Software Developers?

Posted by Cliff on from the when-existing-exp-is-necessary-for-further-exp dept.

timmgrant asks: "Inspired by a love of technology I have always wanted to develop embedded software for consumer electronics. I have just finished a computer science degree and have now been looking for work in that industry but it seems that every job in this field requires previous professional experience in embedded programming. For those that have made it into this field (or any other specialised field) what path did you take? What steps do you propose would take me closer to my ultimate goal?"

2 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. Embedded Systems by Detritus · · Score: 5, Informative

    You need more than a CS degree. Can you read schematics, use test equipment, fix/modify hardware?

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  2. Co-Op or Internship by Phaid · · Score: 5, Informative

    Can't say it enough, working in your chosen field during college gives you a huge advantage in this regard. I work in embedded development, and my work experience during school was invaluable in jumpstarting my professional career.

    During my junior and senior years, I worked at a laser printer manufacturer, maintaining and upgrading code for older products. It wasn't super glamorous, but I also wasn't just getting coffee for people, and I learned more in that year and a half than I did in the entire rest of my academic career.

    After graduation, I had no trouble getting exactly the kind of work I wanted. I went to work on transportation projects at a major defense contractor for a few years, went back into the printer industry for a few years after that, and am now a senior engineer at a consulting firm working on several traffic management and wireless messaging solutions.

    When I graduated in 1994 the market was already fairly competitive, and someone who had real experience working in a team with other engineers, burning ROMs, documenting software, and producing embedded code which ran in real products, had an obvious advantage over someone whose experience consisted solely of implementing linked lists and writing papers on finite automata. With today's large numbers of out of work developers, and the proportionately larger number of CS graduates entering the market, it's incredibly important to distinguish yourself.