Sure, you're both correct. I totally understated the EE's role. My intended point was that you can't expect the EE to just "design the board and give it to you". Coming from web / PC app dev this was a big shock. It's a team effort to figure out what hardware is necessary and form relationships with vendors, and the SWE's are by no means absolved from that process. After a few years of embedded dev now, it now seems odd that I'd have been surprised by that, but nonetheless I was.