Does it pay more to be a HWE or SWE?

Amazon / Eng
lmt210608

Go to company page Amazon Eng

PRE
RBS
 lmt210608
Oct 20, 2019 9 Comments

I'm a L6 network engineer that grew to hate networking after years working on the field. I think memorizing the behaviour of all those protocols and cli commands is the absolute waste of someone's life. Hearing the words "Cisco", "juniper" or "BGP" gets me sick ...I just couldn't care less and I think its time for a change. I would like to continue in engineering as oposed of going TPM or management and an easier move would be sysdev or swe but I'll have to invest a lot of time to get L6 on those areas again....so I was looking at hwe but I've heard they make no money.
Sounds contradictory to me since I've seen Signal Integrity and power integrity engineers being snobs and thinking they are unicorns or something...plus I though all techs L6 were in the same pay bracket.
I think in the end is about what you prefer in life which in my case is money.
So is it better for me to go learn about signal integrity simulation software or just leetcode my way out of networking?

TC:250

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 TOP 9 Comments
  • Intel
    yhyy46

    Go to company page Intel

    yhyy46
    Amazon IT guy gots 250k? Really need to GTFO from here...
    Oct 20, 2019 1
    • Amazon / Eng
      lmt210608

      Go to company page Amazon Eng

      PRE
      RBS
       lmt210608
      OP
      I think you have a point there somewhere...I see network "engineers" without an engineering degree all over the place here. Zero pride here, definitely feels like a big IT help desk and I would like to do real engineering for once...which brings me to the HWE point...it just seems more legit engineering to me but if they make no money then that's a deal breaker.
      Oct 21, 2019
  • Oracle / Eng
    eaponite

    Go to company page Oracle Eng

     eaponite
    Is amazon l6 the same as Google l6?
    Oct 20, 2019 1
  • Yahoo
    KccO10

    Go to company page Yahoo

    KccO10
    A SWE who actually can spell BGP will make bank. Network automation tools are way easier to develop when you understand the goal. Why don’t you take the things you hate (like CLI) and work to eliminate them?
    Oct 21, 2019 0
  • Go for SWE. Fewer jobs for hwe, less room for growth, snobbier people and shittier pay! You can make more than your current pay with even a strong L4 offer at one of the high paying software companies.
    Oct 21, 2019 0
  • Amazon
    wmr

    Go to company page Amazon

    wmr
    SWE pays more in general but like all things "it depends". If you are a kick ass HWE and a shitty SWE then for you personally HWE might pay more.
    Oct 21, 2019 0