How to switch from Firmware to SDE with those 300k TC?

Amazon / Eng
Muffin Bro

Go to company page Amazon Eng

Muffin Bro
Jul 29, 2018 9 Comments

Seriously capped as a firmware guy even in FANG.

I think all in our team are SDE2 to 3 because of demand and supply. What should I learn to move away from C and Verilog and go into things like AI or those in demand roles, like dockers?

TC 225k, 20 YOE, storage and networking firmware.

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TOP 9 Comments
  • Amazon / Eng
    Gy33

    Go to company page Amazon Eng

    Gy33
    I seriously donโ€™t understand how the economics here works. Surely firmware for disks is much harder to do and has a much higher entry barrier than someone who can knock out html and js?

    Thereโ€™s some amount of commoditization going on in the h/w business because all the value is being eaten up by software / ad firms and h/w is a race towards higher performance and lower prices but how does that translate to firmware guys being paid less than regular front end SWEs?
    Jul 30, 2018 2
  • Splunk
    ๐Ÿฅ“๐Ÿฅ“๐Ÿฅ“!

    Go to company page Splunk

    ๐Ÿฅ“๐Ÿฅ“๐Ÿฅ“!
    I started doing lots of Udacity's for learning JavaScript and CSS in HTML and all that horseshit. I did lots of embedded stuff before and yeah I was f****** trapped.
    Jul 29, 2018 1
    • Amazon / Eng
      Muffin Bro

      Go to company page Amazon Eng

      Muffin Bro
      OP
      Nice.

      How long did it take you? Any suggestion on which class in which order?

      What kind of TC before and after the switch?
      Jul 30, 2018
  • Cisco
    IQVm25

    Go to company page Cisco

    IQVm25
    I have a friend who did embedded at Cisco for ~150k, leetcoded and studied hard, now is at G doing backend services for 300k+

    Pass ds/algo interviews, study architecture blogs and system design posts like mad, you should be fine
    Jul 30, 2018 0
  • Just learn java which is easier if you know c++.
    Jul 30, 2018 0
  • Amazon / Eng
    c841b5

    Go to company page Amazon Eng

    c841b5
    If youโ€™re already at Amazon, maybe find someone in the roles youโ€™d want to be in and ask them.
    Jul 30, 2018 0