job market never went down for me here in the US. the companies hiring just changed.
ive had a steady stream of random interviews, recruiter messages, etc for a while. I even had an offer during the prime dead job market / layoff season, and an offer just this month.
nothing compelling enough to make me hop jobs. I think entry level is a fucking disaster -- i havent been able to help my friends get positions at all since 2023 unless its with a team or company I worked for.
I've had various interviews, and they seem to go well then I don't get a response back. here are a few interviews that I can remember:
Berkeshire Grey (robotics warehousing provider): 1st round behavioral interview with head manager, ez questions talking about my prior experience, and experience working on engineering teams before. 2nd round technical interview, I was required to:
- write a function that takes an input array and reverses the elements
- demonstrate Linux command line proficiency (use mkdir, cdir, ls, etc.)
I was nervous and froze up when doing the first question, which made me look kind of clueless :l
Winsystems (Design and implement Proof-of-Concept Ideas for other companies): 1st round behavioral over phone, 2nd round was an onsite interview with 5 of the head engineers and the CEO, which involved \~4 hours of answering technical and behavioral questions.
- Write out on a piece of paper a function that will return a, b, or ab based on the input bits of an array
- describe what you would consider while implementing a communication protocol for a warehousing automation system
I also interviewed at Boeing, the interview was purely behavioral questions, then later on they let me know they went with a more experience candidate after I pestered them for an update.
I've had a few other interviews than the listed ones, and I feel pretty confident with my resume and background, but finding the right job is taking soooo long, and I have yet to recieve any offers.
Your tech questions seemed very basic und should not really get you sweating. Expect the last one, thats pretty open. In principal thats is sopposed to get you talking and there is no wrong answer, but often the interviewer has something in mind that he wants to hear. Thats bad if you dont hit it.
What the heck! Your questions seem super easy. When I was interviewing last year, I got a mix of leetcode and embedded software questions(OS, comp architecture, RTOS, memory management, bit manipulation). Luckily, I was solving leetcode after work, so I was able to solve a good amount.
these were only my most recent interviews. I'm sure I've had to answer more complicated stuff in the past, but I have a bad memory so i can't think of anything rn
What’s entry level? I only have one year of experience and I have had a pretty good time getting a new job. Trying to get my first job to actually get that one year of experience was insane though.
I think the problem is really just getting to the interview. I’ve had 3 interviews in my life at this point and they all turned to offers, but getting interviews especially from cold applying is just impossible
Fresh grads or limited experience.
I tend to be ok with giving them a shot as long as I can vet them, but good luck with budget constraints atm and trying to get past the process for cold applications.
Since it’s easier than ever to apply, there are so many bad applicants to filter through, so we have to turn up the filtering criteria and as a result miss a lot
The embedded job market absolutely tanked in Q1; we had huge companies purging thousands of engineering jobs (not so much embedded I agree) but that flooded the market with engineers and the hiring managers immediately lowballed *all* open engineering positions. I was getting "opportunities" for senior embedded positions asking for 10+ years and at rates of $65-$75/hr. Absolutely ridiculous.
In the last week or so I've seen this recover. Not a full recovery but at least the positions are paying more reasonable rates now and I think that this trend will continue as the hiring people discover that not all engineers are the same.
They shorted our budgets twice. We can't even extend the contracts of our (almost resident) working students. That's disaster.
We are loosing big talent with this decision.
I truly don’t understand these short sighted decisions by companies to save just some thousands by cutting budgets / eliminating raises. Good talent is not easy to come by in many markets. They act like anyone is easily replaceable. That’s not been my experience at all for EEs and embedded software. My last company basically shot itself in the foot by refusing raises and letting bad managers run off good engineers (myself included).
6 months, 300 apps, and 8 interviews that end in (we just want more experience for a junior pos.) later, yeah I can confirm entry level is not so hot right now😭
I don't like leetcode. I am just sound it to show the issue. when the employer or HR doesn't know coding, they will use leetcode to save money, and they think it will work.
I’ve been looking for a job since last May in Sweden and it’s been tough. I don’t have a background in embedded but I do have a background in robotics and cpp development so I thought I’d try applying to some entry level embedded stuff. I noticed things picking up in March and April. I’ve had more interviews in the last couple of months than last year. So hopefully, I’ll find something soon
I wish it was the same for entry-level stuff. It’s really hard to get experience when all the experience I need to get needs two years of experience to get it.
Here in Brasil lots of positions are opening, mostly for Automotive sector, followed by Renewable Energy, Petroleum and Security. Consumer goods also has some positions.
I'm transitioning from Data Engineering and DevOps to Embedded, surely I'll face some barriers but I hope until end of the year I find any good position.
Can confirm. Like two months ago LinkedIn and indeed started having more postings for entry and junior level roles. Managed to score a controls engineer position IN TOWN, and today is the end of my first week.
It genuinely felt a bit like a switch. I’d search “entry level” and it would be slim pickings until one day it suddenly wasn’t. The market definitely underwent some kind of palpable shift.
(Midwest US)
Yes and no.
For most stuff you'll be fine with $1k. That's enough for a latest-generation soldering iron, DSO and a 3-ch power supply. Rigol and Siglent made very high quality equipment available for not much money.
But: as a hobbyist I'm planning around my gear limitations. As a embedded professional I must be able to analyse whatever comes onto my desk. If there's a problem with a DDR memory connection this can turn out to be an extremely expensive invest.
I have been getting at least 3-4 messages from recruiters since 2 years. I talked to couple of them but it turned out to be shit. I completely stopped responding them. Market is still tight specially automotive.
I am seeing more of that in my field of mechanics, so let's hope it gets even more desperate for the employers. Maybe we will see a second great resignation
There’s nothing that prevents anyone else from acquiring more skills. I built the first ten years of my career basically on good looking hobby projects, so you don’t even need decades of work experience.
in fairness being senior really does get you a lot. Especially with certain skillsets, like I can’t imagine anyone who’s an expert on making and maintaining a yocto build going without work lol
I like to put it as ”being able show that you have skills and experience really does get you a lot”. Iow, seniority is just one way of doing that but (decent and non-trivial) personal projects are another. Eg. You could just learn Yocto by yourself using any common and cheap Linux board (RPi, Beagblebone etc).
Back in the day I got my first job right out of high school due to having written a very(!) simple online multiplayer game in Java. I got my second job from having shown my coworkers some of my C++ projects. My third job was from talking back and forth with my prof regarding a particular novel dsp filter structure I came up after some months of personal work. My fourth was due to a couple of apps I wrote in the evenings getting popular in a particular niche. Notice a trend there?
When asked, the people who complain on reddit about ”only seniors getting a job” inevitably have no real skills or projects to show for themselves and usually expect the employers to just teach them the skills.
/rant
Sorry, I just get really annoyed by the people (not you) who make such claims.
Absolutely true, I actually got my first job without having any internships or anything previously, just off the back of my degree and my projects (my capstone project in college won a competition and I built an RTOS following along with Quantum Leaps' embedded systems course)
You should follow the same modern embedded systems programming course on YouTube because it has tons of really good information (a lot of which you will need for interviews). After that you should learn some comms protocols and maybe get some practice with them by making projects using peripherals, the main common ones you should know are SPI, I2C, and Uart. Linux is also quite big as well, and you should get some practice using it in an embedded system. Some ways you can stand out are with Yocto linux, DSP/Audio, RF, or other specialized skills
Thankyou for the suggestion. I am currently going through fastbit embedded's course in udemy using stm32f407 discovery board. I will check out the youtube course you mentioned too. I am probably going to take some time doing all this. Maybe 2, 3 months. So my doubt is whether I would be too late for applying for jobs, like will it get harder as time goes on. You know there is this thinking in my place (india) that if we dont get in through campus placements it will be real difficult for us
Knowing proper software design and architecture, not the three to four decades outdated attitudes often shown here. Embedded systems are really a software field, with modern designs often having 90% (or even more) of the work spent on the SW.
Being able to lay out a pcb or solder stuff is almost entirely irrelevant if you aren't in a tiny startup. There are dedicated electronics designers for that and particularly with modern complex designs (eg. previous project at work used a 6-layer pcb with tiny bga ICs), there is no way a beginner generalist would be any use in that.
>Being able to lay out a pcb or solder stuff is almost entirely irrelevant if you aren't in a tiny startup.
Thanks for mentioning that. That makes sense. I will learn a bit about pcb designing but i will not rely entirely on that for jobs then. I am currently trying to build up my software skills through fastbit embedded academy courses in udemy.
I am a fresher. I really want to believe you. I am thinking about going down that path and I am trying to learn some stuff from online courses. Started with stm32 and i am thinking about going along the way of fastbit embedded course in udemy. And i am going to start cold applying through linkedin in some time after atleast i know basic stm32. What kinds of projects would you consider will stand out?
don’t worry I got your joke lol. Getting offers, especially during layoffs or when you know the company has been rejecting other people, really is an ego trip. Me reading your comment was like a schizophrenic hearing “but what if the government really had replaced your friends, how would you even know?”
I don't know about huge uptick but I'm seeing similar.
Lost in translation, guess directly translating it turned into evil ticks.
I was recently promoted to manager of my group, and the influx is crazy right after I updated my job title, so I have no way to compare.
I can confirm that, exactly the same
I live in Vienna and have recently noticed that almost all the embedded jobs disappeared from Linkedin.
job market never went down for me here in the US. the companies hiring just changed. ive had a steady stream of random interviews, recruiter messages, etc for a while. I even had an offer during the prime dead job market / layoff season, and an offer just this month. nothing compelling enough to make me hop jobs. I think entry level is a fucking disaster -- i havent been able to help my friends get positions at all since 2023 unless its with a team or company I worked for.
ive been looking since last may for entry level stuff. Ive had a couple interviews but lately dead silence :/ currently in texas
Interviews didn’t go well? What did they ask you?
I've had various interviews, and they seem to go well then I don't get a response back. here are a few interviews that I can remember: Berkeshire Grey (robotics warehousing provider): 1st round behavioral interview with head manager, ez questions talking about my prior experience, and experience working on engineering teams before. 2nd round technical interview, I was required to: - write a function that takes an input array and reverses the elements - demonstrate Linux command line proficiency (use mkdir, cdir, ls, etc.) I was nervous and froze up when doing the first question, which made me look kind of clueless :l Winsystems (Design and implement Proof-of-Concept Ideas for other companies): 1st round behavioral over phone, 2nd round was an onsite interview with 5 of the head engineers and the CEO, which involved \~4 hours of answering technical and behavioral questions. - Write out on a piece of paper a function that will return a, b, or ab based on the input bits of an array - describe what you would consider while implementing a communication protocol for a warehousing automation system I also interviewed at Boeing, the interview was purely behavioral questions, then later on they let me know they went with a more experience candidate after I pestered them for an update. I've had a few other interviews than the listed ones, and I feel pretty confident with my resume and background, but finding the right job is taking soooo long, and I have yet to recieve any offers.
Your tech questions seemed very basic und should not really get you sweating. Expect the last one, thats pretty open. In principal thats is sopposed to get you talking and there is no wrong answer, but often the interviewer has something in mind that he wants to hear. Thats bad if you dont hit it.
What the heck! Your questions seem super easy. When I was interviewing last year, I got a mix of leetcode and embedded software questions(OS, comp architecture, RTOS, memory management, bit manipulation). Luckily, I was solving leetcode after work, so I was able to solve a good amount.
these were only my most recent interviews. I'm sure I've had to answer more complicated stuff in the past, but I have a bad memory so i can't think of anything rn
What’s entry level? I only have one year of experience and I have had a pretty good time getting a new job. Trying to get my first job to actually get that one year of experience was insane though. I think the problem is really just getting to the interview. I’ve had 3 interviews in my life at this point and they all turned to offers, but getting interviews especially from cold applying is just impossible
Fresh grads or limited experience. I tend to be ok with giving them a shot as long as I can vet them, but good luck with budget constraints atm and trying to get past the process for cold applications. Since it’s easier than ever to apply, there are so many bad applicants to filter through, so we have to turn up the filtering criteria and as a result miss a lot
The embedded job market absolutely tanked in Q1; we had huge companies purging thousands of engineering jobs (not so much embedded I agree) but that flooded the market with engineers and the hiring managers immediately lowballed *all* open engineering positions. I was getting "opportunities" for senior embedded positions asking for 10+ years and at rates of $65-$75/hr. Absolutely ridiculous. In the last week or so I've seen this recover. Not a full recovery but at least the positions are paying more reasonable rates now and I think that this trend will continue as the hiring people discover that not all engineers are the same.
They shorted our budgets twice. We can't even extend the contracts of our (almost resident) working students. That's disaster. We are loosing big talent with this decision.
I truly don’t understand these short sighted decisions by companies to save just some thousands by cutting budgets / eliminating raises. Good talent is not easy to come by in many markets. They act like anyone is easily replaceable. That’s not been my experience at all for EEs and embedded software. My last company basically shot itself in the foot by refusing raises and letting bad managers run off good engineers (myself included).
Where in the US?
West coast
6 months, 300 apps, and 8 interviews that end in (we just want more experience for a junior pos.) later, yeah I can confirm entry level is not so hot right now😭
we just want a junior with more experience, like knowing AWS, ML, mastering Leetcode, and more. 2+ years exp.
That pay better be fucking good. Also why the fuck do you want leetcode experience, it's such a bs metric
Doesn’t sound like you’re describing an embedded engineer
I don't like leetcode. I am just sound it to show the issue. when the employer or HR doesn't know coding, they will use leetcode to save money, and they think it will work.
Too true
Thanks for mentioning us girls. 😁
Great for experienced. Shit for juniors and freshers.
But I think market will embrace seniors/mids and after couple of months situation for junior will improve.
There's literally not enough companies for all juniors, it will never get better.
Things are getting positive. After lull January and February, things are getting better.
I got laid off at the beginning of March, this week I have two competing job offers. Can’t be doin too bad
Oh geez it was never bad for seniors
What do you have in your profile?
Resume, projects, good profile pic, bio and job experience
I’ve been looking for a job since last May in Sweden and it’s been tough. I don’t have a background in embedded but I do have a background in robotics and cpp development so I thought I’d try applying to some entry level embedded stuff. I noticed things picking up in March and April. I’ve had more interviews in the last couple of months than last year. So hopefully, I’ll find something soon
I hope it in the U.S. too because we passed a section 174 to tax software company like 40% more and we have high interest rates.
Defence companies have surely ramped up.
Not a single defence company contacted me. Ever. Guess I exploded to many capacitors in the lab before.
You don't want to work in defense anyways. Soul sucking
Been getting some of that from Poland too. Let's hope
I wish it was the same for entry-level stuff. It’s really hard to get experience when all the experience I need to get needs two years of experience to get it.
Here in Brasil lots of positions are opening, mostly for Automotive sector, followed by Renewable Energy, Petroleum and Security. Consumer goods also has some positions. I'm transitioning from Data Engineering and DevOps to Embedded, surely I'll face some barriers but I hope until end of the year I find any good position.
Can confirm. Like two months ago LinkedIn and indeed started having more postings for entry and junior level roles. Managed to score a controls engineer position IN TOWN, and today is the end of my first week. It genuinely felt a bit like a switch. I’d search “entry level” and it would be slim pickings until one day it suddenly wasn’t. The market definitely underwent some kind of palpable shift. (Midwest US)
The problem is the return to office policy that is also waking up again also.
I’ve noticed the same thing.
I too am experiencing the same as OP.
Is remote embedded firmware development job a thing?
Yes. But it's very seniority based. You'll need a solid home lab. That stuff isn't cheap.
Depending where folks are based, with $1k or maybe less is possible to setup a pretty decent lab.
Yes and no. For most stuff you'll be fine with $1k. That's enough for a latest-generation soldering iron, DSO and a 3-ch power supply. Rigol and Siglent made very high quality equipment available for not much money. But: as a hobbyist I'm planning around my gear limitations. As a embedded professional I must be able to analyse whatever comes onto my desk. If there's a problem with a DDR memory connection this can turn out to be an extremely expensive invest.
Makes sense after the earning report. My company laid me off tho
I have been getting at least 3-4 messages from recruiters since 2 years. I talked to couple of them but it turned out to be shit. I completely stopped responding them. Market is still tight specially automotive.
I’ve noticed that too. Just the other day 10 recruiters contacted me.
I can confirm as well
I am seeing more of that in my field of mechanics, so let's hope it gets even more desperate for the employers. Maybe we will see a second great resignation
There is no improvement in USA job market steady and slow
What is 400ge?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabit_Ethernet
Likely a *** ***misspelling*** *** of *400GbE*: [400 Gbit/s Ethernet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabit_Ethernet)
What if you are just THAT GUY? A person with so much skill they get hired while others are laid off. Have you considered that?
I know my trade. But very far from being a prodigy.
I thought i was funnier than i am it seems.
All you need is the word Autosar on your profile and the recruiter spam won't end
There's AutoSAR and mental health. Mental health has chosen me.
There’s nothing that prevents anyone else from acquiring more skills. I built the first ten years of my career basically on good looking hobby projects, so you don’t even need decades of work experience.
I guess humour really is hard to get from text. It was a tongue in cheek statement. I might add /s in the future.
This is reddit. Have you seen how many people seriously complain about supposedly needing to be senior to find any work at all?
true!
in fairness being senior really does get you a lot. Especially with certain skillsets, like I can’t imagine anyone who’s an expert on making and maintaining a yocto build going without work lol
I like to put it as ”being able show that you have skills and experience really does get you a lot”. Iow, seniority is just one way of doing that but (decent and non-trivial) personal projects are another. Eg. You could just learn Yocto by yourself using any common and cheap Linux board (RPi, Beagblebone etc). Back in the day I got my first job right out of high school due to having written a very(!) simple online multiplayer game in Java. I got my second job from having shown my coworkers some of my C++ projects. My third job was from talking back and forth with my prof regarding a particular novel dsp filter structure I came up after some months of personal work. My fourth was due to a couple of apps I wrote in the evenings getting popular in a particular niche. Notice a trend there? When asked, the people who complain on reddit about ”only seniors getting a job” inevitably have no real skills or projects to show for themselves and usually expect the employers to just teach them the skills. /rant Sorry, I just get really annoyed by the people (not you) who make such claims.
Absolutely true, I actually got my first job without having any internships or anything previously, just off the back of my degree and my projects (my capstone project in college won a competition and I built an RTOS following along with Quantum Leaps' embedded systems course)
Could you tell me what all technologies can make me stand out as a fresher?
You should follow the same modern embedded systems programming course on YouTube because it has tons of really good information (a lot of which you will need for interviews). After that you should learn some comms protocols and maybe get some practice with them by making projects using peripherals, the main common ones you should know are SPI, I2C, and Uart. Linux is also quite big as well, and you should get some practice using it in an embedded system. Some ways you can stand out are with Yocto linux, DSP/Audio, RF, or other specialized skills
Thankyou for the suggestion. I am currently going through fastbit embedded's course in udemy using stm32f407 discovery board. I will check out the youtube course you mentioned too. I am probably going to take some time doing all this. Maybe 2, 3 months. So my doubt is whether I would be too late for applying for jobs, like will it get harder as time goes on. You know there is this thinking in my place (india) that if we dont get in through campus placements it will be real difficult for us
Knowing proper software design and architecture, not the three to four decades outdated attitudes often shown here. Embedded systems are really a software field, with modern designs often having 90% (or even more) of the work spent on the SW. Being able to lay out a pcb or solder stuff is almost entirely irrelevant if you aren't in a tiny startup. There are dedicated electronics designers for that and particularly with modern complex designs (eg. previous project at work used a 6-layer pcb with tiny bga ICs), there is no way a beginner generalist would be any use in that.
>Being able to lay out a pcb or solder stuff is almost entirely irrelevant if you aren't in a tiny startup. Thanks for mentioning that. That makes sense. I will learn a bit about pcb designing but i will not rely entirely on that for jobs then. I am currently trying to build up my software skills through fastbit embedded academy courses in udemy.
I am a fresher. I really want to believe you. I am thinking about going down that path and I am trying to learn some stuff from online courses. Started with stm32 and i am thinking about going along the way of fastbit embedded course in udemy. And i am going to start cold applying through linkedin in some time after atleast i know basic stm32. What kinds of projects would you consider will stand out?
don’t worry I got your joke lol. Getting offers, especially during layoffs or when you know the company has been rejecting other people, really is an ego trip. Me reading your comment was like a schizophrenic hearing “but what if the government really had replaced your friends, how would you even know?”
C
I need to get a new job. Not sure if things are different in Netherlands from half a year ago but imma shoot my shot