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Comment by dan-robertson | Hacker News Reader

Is a ‘computer hardware engineer’ different from a ‘hardware engineer’? I think of a ‘hardware engineer’ as someone who works on the development of ICs (or things on FPGAs). I would guess that people in such a role are paid a lot less than software engineers (at comparably sized companies) in the US, and a bit less in the UK (though maybe with more variance). But the numbers you give are lower than I would expect for eg ‘hardware engineer working at Arm/Qualcomm’. There’s also hardware engineering in finance, which can pay well, but not a lot of it.

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I said computer to specify on-chip design, not hardware as in PCB/electronics work. I worked initially on CPU integration for industrial computers, which was that lower figure. I pivoted to FPGA design a couple of years ago and make a bit more now, but it's still pittance compared to my colleagues in other countries.

There's a bit more money to be made up in Cambridge with Arm and Qualcomm as you mentioned, but my take home would be less when adjusted for local housing costs. As for HFT, its an end goal if only to escape the cycle of poverty, but not something I want to do out of passion for the craft.

Yeah, Cambridge certainly can feel like it’s in a weird place where salaries are high by UK standards (at least outside London) but housing is also quite expensive. They’re planning/building a lot more housing there so that may change. The situation is something that’s fine for young people who don’t need much housing (especially if they want to share with friends) but for people with families who need more housing can have a harder time. I think it can still be worth it depending on one’s circumstances, though I haven’t attempted any calculation (intuition here is roughly (a) that a smaller % of a bigger number can be bigger than a larger % of a smaller number, and (b) similar other examples). I wonder how pay and available roles compare at Arm’s office in Sheffield.

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