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Embedded systems is a very interesting field which needs to deal with software as well as hardware at the same time. To write proper software it is necessary to understand the underlying hardware. Also software knowledge is a must to actually perform useful tasks. Often software engineers only write the software for embedded devices which we call firmware. They do it because they are taught and trained to do so. On the other hand, hardware or electronics engineers are more inclined towards the “hardware” which include analog and digital circuit design, PCB design, troubleshooting, hardware installation and support. Writing code is not their primary job as taught in university courses. However, they have a great advantage over software engineers that they understand the hardware architecture better. They know how the processor has to interact with the analog circuitry and how it will affect the overall performance. Often there are things that can be done either through hardware or software. For example an application requires a trigger over a certain voltage input. Now is it feasible to use a fixed voltage comparator in the hardware or to read the analog value and define the threshold in the software? Only a person familiar with the actual analog signal and its behavior can decide what to do. That is why electronic engineers with strong firmware/software skills are preferred.

However, sometimes hardware skills are relatively irrelevant; for instance embedded Linux development. In this case software engineers have clear advantage as the very knowledge of every register and flag bits is not necessary. However, as I learned through my experience, if you are learning embedded Linux for the first time, it does not make you very different from the software guys as even they come up to a newer field except somebody is a Linux guru. An electronics engineer still has great chance to learn Linux during his course of career.

As the time is passing by, more and more products carry intelligence deeply embedded in them. Small, low-cost, power efficient microcontrollers are widely used to make things smarter. Every household product carries a small electronics running a little RTOS or pseudo code carrying that “little intelligence” to make them so. Therefore electronics engineers with strong background of hardware development must also invest some time and effort to learn writing firmware and should master C language as it is de-facto standard in embedded world. I remember when I was at University and used to pay special attention to the my C language course. This was because I liked coding. This effort paid me back in my professional career as I have been coding in C for more than seven years now. All in all, embedded systems is a great career for electronics engineers. However, they need to pay special attention to firmware as well as getting familiar with embedded Linux.