Contracting in Embedded systems

[encoder]

Hi All,
I have been a lurker on this forum since few weeks and got a very good insight of contracting market. Am a permie embedded developer with 5 years of experience and related education. I know there are lot of people contracting in pure IT i.e within Banking, retail...etc including some of my friends(charging hefty amounts per day). But have never come across a contractor in embedded systems.

Is anyone on here working in embedded sector? Or is the market too niche for it. If yes, would be glad to know your views on getting into it.

Thanks.

[SueEllen]

i get random emails for embedded systems the rates are sh*t - which is probably why I get the emails for them.

And no I don't do and have never done embedded systems in any shape or form.

I suggest you put your CV out there and see what feedback you get.

However whatever you do don't give the agencies who phone you up fishing your manager's name.

[stek]

I know someone who did that, PCB's n stuff, lives in North Wales.

I worked on embedded VAX, bet no-one else has, VAX-ELN - the system date was always what VMS thought the epoch was, sometime in 1859...

Love it!

[Contreras]

Is anyone on here working in embedded sector? Or is the market too niche for it. If yes, would be glad to know your views on getting into it.

Thanks.

It seems 'embedded' is used to refer to so many things these days. The Linux system I'm currently working on has god knows how many tens of gigabytes, gigahertz, and whatnot but apparently it's embedded because it sits in a rack and has no monitor.

Set-top-boxes, automotive, Linux kernel, and Java apps running on an Android phone - all embedded. What was once embedded, coding without an OS and the need to wield a soldering iron, is now 'firmware' (well it always was really) and assembler seems more often in the job spec. than it used to be even though it's rarely used it proves you're hardcore.

But to answer the question: yeah, there is a contract market for embedded (all types).

Make sure your CV has the right buzz words for the type of work you're interested in and get it uploaded to the job boards. If you're not speaking to agents within 72 hours then you're doing something very wrong.

[nomadd]

And no I don't do and have never done embedded systems in any shape or form.

I have, for about five years, spread over 3 clients. Was the most technically challanging and interesting work I've ever done.

But...

i get random emails for embedded systems the rates are sh*t - which is probably why I get the emails for them.

This^

The rates are about half (or even less) than I can get from a bank, so I don't bother with embedded these days.

[nomadd]

Hi All,
I have been a lurker on this forum since few weeks and got a very good insight of contracting market. Am a permie embedded developer with 5 years of experience and related education. I know there are lot of people contracting in pure IT i.e within Banking, retail...etc including some of my friends(charging hefty amounts per day). But have never come across a contractor in embedded systems.

Is anyone on here working in embedded sector? Or is the market too niche for it. If yes, would be glad to know your views on getting into it.

Thanks.

FWIW, there are 53 contracts for embedded software engineers on Jobserve at present.

The only roles which seem to have pay rates beyond slave wages level are those in the TV Set-top box market (which was what I mainly worked in.)

[VectraMan]

Whenever I look for C++ there's always a load of embedded jobs come up. Set Top Boxes seems to be the big thing.

But yes, they tend to be the £30/hr jobs for some reason. Which depending on your circumstances might seem quite good.

[FarmerPalmer]

Yes, I have always worked in embedded. The money (£30-40/per hour ... goes up and down) is not as good as say banking, but I enjoy it more, and it has been a decision I've been happy to make.

e.g. Environmental Monitoring, Traffic Controls, Railway Communications, Emergency Service Communications, Telecoms, Consumer Products, Railway Signalling, Parking Machines.

I got back on the contract market in 2007. I finished my last contract a couple of weeks ago and am currently waiting for something close to home (Swindon-Bristol area) before I start looking at something with more than 1 hour commute, but I have money in the business to tide me over and the weather is good. The local market seems to have slowed down in the last few weeks, just as I'm back on it.

[encoder]

@Contreras - I agree embedded covers lot of area these days. I am into device driver development (windows/linux) mainly related to video,audio, dvr's.

@nomadd - yes I like the work, its very challenging but tulipe pay (in 40's). so how did you move into banking from embedded? Or were your expertise in higher level programming/management.

By the way I have picked some interesting vocabulary on here ...tulipe, bob, gig...

[nomadd]

@nomadd - yes I like the work, its very challenging but tulipe pay (in 40's). so how did you move into banking from embedded? Or were your expertise in higher level programming/management.

Nope, I've stayed on the techie side of things.

The TV companies I worked for also need real-time control desks for operators of the embedded systems I'd built. That got me into building desktop applications on Windows and UNIX clients. Also started to do a bit of database work for storing TV schedules to be downloaded to the real-time embedded stuff, and so got some decent SQL skills on my c.v.

With those skills (SQL, C/C++, Windows, X-Windows, then Java and Swing) it was easy to move into different industries.