Ask HN: How can I pivot from firmware to software/web development?

Greetings fellow hackers!

I've always loved working on firmware since the uni days but after 2 years in the automotive industry, 2 years in the semiconductor industry and almost 3 years in the consumer electronics industry, most of them $BIG_CORPS, I've had enough of the nightmare that firmware work is becoming and would like to try my luck in the software/web develpment world.

Software wise, I have experience writing Python, C++ and C# apps. Nothing fancy though, most of these apps were tools intended for internal use or in manufacturing facilities instead of being stand-alone products. I also study some JavaScript in my free time.

I'm 29 years old, European, have a BSc in Computer Engineering and a MSc in Embedded Systems, however, every job I apply for I cannot get passed HR. And I don't mean Senior Dev positions in FAANG like companies, I mean local small to medium shops apologise saying they're only looking for candidates with previous on the job experience. I am willing to take a huge pay cut to get in but I never get to any interviews in the first place.

Do any of you go through this? How did you do it? Was it worth it?

4 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 22.2 ms ] thread

jstewartmobile 7y ago ↗

I have a similar background, but I started my own shop. More people asking for web and mobile applications than embedded ones, so for the "how" part, I stumbled into it. As for enjoyment, it's all good except that javascript and its ecosystem are a trash fire.

Not such a great language to begin with, then add all of the variants and tooling (node/browser, ES3/5/6, babel, npm, yarn, typescript, webpack, grunt, etc, etc), and the fact that it seems to change every day, just... ugh.

I'd take some poorly-documented embedded C API like Nordic's any day of the week over the JS ecosystem.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago ↗

I'm also happy with the vendor provided APIs but I wasn't lucky enough to use them anywhere appart from automotive and hobby projects. Most of the time, to make competitive products we had to build our own APIs form the metal up optimized for our use cases wich means you have zero suppor from the IC manufacturer and a clusterfuck of problemes waiting for you.

kejaed 7y ago ↗

As an Engineering Manager my answer would be: Show Me.

Develop a portfolio of 2 or 3 sites that showcase the type of work you would like to do.

The internal tool usecase is a great one, and having the embedded experience to create a web front end or dashboard will definitely help. If you have some embedded projects at home with an Arduino or Raspberry Pi, write a front end for that that uses key web technologies. Then write some blog posts about it, point to your github with the source and then you have something to put at the top of your Resume/Cover Letter/Email to the hiring manager.

semireg 7y ago ↗

For the last 5 years I’ve done mostly mobile app dev on native iOS and Android. I’ve had a few side projects involving EE, MSP430 and MicroPython, USB controllers... but a long way from being competitive against the experience you have.

For the last 6 months I’ve combined a lot of my skill sets, and extended into web dev by building an electron app that interacts with USB hardware. For me, this is the best of many worlds and allows me to be a “full stack” developer but closer to hardware (vs cloud). Read more at https://www.label.live/blog/introducing-label-live

Good luck!