Comment by seanw444
3 years ago
I've been worried of feeling the same. Now, I try to do software dev at companies whose product isn't software. Currently, that is souvenir manufacturing automation. The job is producing the simplest software that speeds up the production process. No need for fancy modern UIs, no need for subscriptions, no need for handling large amounts of private user data... it's nice. Much more gratifying than working at <insert-generic-big-tech-company-here>.
I see a lot of disenfrachised, highly skilled software engineers in this thread that I think would be very well welcomed into the electronics industry if they spent a few weeks trying their hand at using those skills for embedded systems.
Although I work for a big tech company now (the fun kind for me at least, making hardware platforms), in a previous life I made consumer products. Hair dryers, hoover's, ovens, lamp's, etc. It's amazing how much more your average person's eyes light up when you say that you helped design their kettle, compared to the chip in their phone or the backend of their social media, and there really is a certain amount of joy in that.