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Embedded Developer's Survival Guide, 2005

Posted by timothy on from the don't-put-your-fingers-on-the-grindstone dept.

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices has published the full keynote address delivered at the Embedded Systems Conference 2005 by Wind River CEO Ken Klein. The hardnosed speech presents a five-point action plan for device software developers who are interested in keeping their jobs -- as opposed to becoming "roadkill," as Klein puts it. The speech is decidedly short on warm fuzzies, but does offer a few practical considerations for engineer job survival in the post-recession era."

3 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. Article summary by p3d0 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Suits to coders: stop whining and work harder.

    --
    Patrick Doyle
    I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
  2. summary by klossner · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's all pointy-haired boss stuff. Starts out with an incorrect premise:
    We [engineers] don't do development well: More than half of embedded designs are completed 3-4 months behind schedule; 24 percent -- nearly a quarter -- get cancelled
    In my twenty-mumble years of engineering, pretty much every time these problems have occurred it's because the requirements were changed in mid-project. Often for excellent reasons, but the consequences do not reflect an engineering deficiency.
    Don't write new code, leverage existing software. Buy it from us.
    Hardly unexpected.
  3. What practical considerations? by mutterc · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I actually RTFA, and didn't really see any practical considerations. It's written by a boardroom type, and so all it has is the usual management drivel we all get every day:
    • If you get laid off, it must have been your own fault for not keeping up with management's desires.
    • Make sure to change to whatever job management wants you to do, without complaint.
    • Don't be threatened by outsourcing; learn to manage the contractors. (Because, of course, every engineers secretly longs to be a project-manager, and there will be plenty of PM jobs to soak up all the unemployed engineers...)
    • The CEO's job depends on your doing your job well. (Curiously failing to mention that, if the CEO loses his job, a golden parachute kicks in, he cashes out a buttload of stock options, then finds a new job without much trouble - none of which is available to us).
    It never ceases to amaze me how companies try to hire people smart enough to develop good products, and then expect them to fall for such transparently self-serving bullshit.

    Maybe instead of the article's suggestion of "don't take change personally" (really!), I should learn to not take insults of my intelligence personally. If only I could mod the article "-1, Troll"...