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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

Hardware folks are generally underpaid, FWIW. I had an idea and was able to get an almost genius level HW guy to do the grunt work for $75/hour, and he seemed thrilled with the comp level. He worked for a very recognizable brand name, but did side work for peanuts. I wasn't lowballing either. I bumped his intitial offer by 50% just to make sure I had his attention.

His design worked out of the box with no issues, and he even had solid advice on dealing with the end Chinese PCB suppliers.

I'd advise hiring an expert because they generally aren't priced the same as software experts. I'm pretty sure I'd have spent a lot more fumbling around trying to do it myself.

Kind of a shame really. It's arguably a harder skill to master these days.

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I've observed the same thing regarding EE and embedded software compensation vs. pure software pay. Big difference, and very unfair feeling when you look at the skill involved with being an EE.

I'd argue that maybe EE's aren't underpaid on an absolute scale, but that software has completely different market conditions and rather, it's software people who are doing uniquely great.

It does feel like a bit of a weird bubble. I had one unique/rare skill (financial trading + network+ it security, basically Kerberos skills) that let me bill out at $350/hour for a short while. I was somewhat embarrassed, though grateful, about the whole thing.

And I completely got that people smarter than me were billing at 5x lower rates for harder work.

Back when was re-evaluating where I wanted to go with my career(post-gamedev burnout) I briefly considered getting an BS in EE and getting a hardware job since it's an area that interests me. Did a bunch of research and found similar things.

I think it largely boils down to a couple factors:

1. Everything in hardware has to be spec'd to the teeth since re-spin of HW/Masks can easily run into the 7-figures. That means there's very little flexibility and opportunity for the "10x" EE to manifest.

2. Since everything is still heavily spec'd you get a lot of "replaceable cog in the machine effect".

3. A lot(but not all) HW is really removed from the end customer so you aren't as deeply tied with the business side of things which hurts visibility/etc.

4. Software is just more flexible which means you have a much easier opportunity to be "full stack" and not get pigeon-holed to a specific technology.

At the end of the day I scratch the hardware itch in my spare time and I still find SW a ton of fun. Plus there's a ton of value in being a software dev that can speak/understand hardware language and fit it into the larger picture.

The bigger thing, at least among my friend group, is that some people will take a pay cut to work on something interesting/avoid doing CRUD work/etc. I feel like that's the most common reason a EE is willing to accept lower pay, though I've also generally felt that the bulk of EE jobs were in lower cost areas than the Bay or NYC, so it would be interesting to see a breakdown of EE salary by location and compare that to pure software.

I looked at freelancer.com for the first time yesterday. I was shocked at the lowest bid prices for hardware jobs. Though many of these are from overseas. Makes me think again about working for myself. I’m billed out at close to $400/Hr, and maybe take home about $60 of that.

How do you go about finding a good HW guy for a side-project?

Asking because our analog layout guy with decades of experience really needs help with the discrete parts.

Nothing fancy just some rotary encoder work.

This is the kind of stuff I remember doing in my FPGA class a long time ago but I figure I'd be fumbling around in a real hardware land since I usually do embedded software.

There must be gotchas that an expert would know in a real hardware that are not present in a simulation.

I just happened to "know a guy that knew a guy". Places like upwork seem too much of a crapshoot.

People with those talents should congregate on some webaite. They could easily get side work that pays better then their day job. Since PCB's are dirt cheap these days, it feels like there's a missing marketplace.

Any idea where one could find such experts? And good on you for bumping his initial offer.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16538766

Thanks

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