>There isn't as much pressure in tech to deliver low level results quickly.
I wish there was less over-generalised "Oh, these other guys, they've got it easy, unlike us!".
From my time in embedded, I've gathered some rather different experiences. Deadline are often tight, and as software integration and testing are by necessity the last step in the development process, it's always the software guys who're left holding the bag if anything goes wrong at the earlier stages of the project. The overall deadline must be kept, after all.
So when the hardware guys slip on their deadline (for whatever reason, it doesn't have to be their fault), it's of course up to the software guys to make up for the delay. How hard can a bit of embedded software be, after all? So you're left writing lot's of stuff on the dry, as without access to the hardware, you have no way to test everything in advance.
Then there's the cases where bugs in the layout or docs are only found after you insist forcefully that either the documentation or the hardware itself must be at fault (after hours of futilely hunting for a nonexistent software bug).
So, no, embedded is not necessarily as easy as some people like to make it out. As with most everything, it's very much a case of "it depends".