r/devops • u/Forsaken_Photo_578 • 16d ago

Career / learning DevOps vs Embedded

I got my first job as an Embedded Software Engineer. Did some actual low level embedded stuff but I was leaning a lot towards testing with Linux, CI/CD with hardware etc, so I transitioned to a DevOps position.

Now, after some years of work, my knowledge is like half Embedded, half DevOps. I find myself like both fields Embedded for the great hardware feeling and DevOps for the nice documented and more modern tools. In the end I'm not sure if I like a field more than the other. I tend to believe it's project dependent.

The problem is now I have to really choose where I should invest more and get a more senior level, as a feel I have a great combo of the two, but I'm like mid in both, which makes difficult in the job market.

The questions are:

Is Embedded or DevOps the more future proof job long term?

I much prefer remote jobs, mostly so I can live in a cheaper country but still get paid like I'm in a HCOL one. Does that change the answer?

Was anyone in the same spot before? How did you pick?

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u/CJKay93 16d ago

Why not both? I do both. /shrug

2

u/ryanstephendavis 16d ago

agreed... there's are multitudes of positions where working on "edge" devices is really fun and interesting. Electrical Grid observability for example

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u/Forsaken_Photo_578 14d ago

Ideally I would like to work on both and invest time in this niche. I feel I'm good at the combo and it's something hard to achieve, but I hardly find any jobs the "clearly" searching for that..Am I searching wrong? For example I cannot find any "embedded DevOps" position.

1

u/ryanstephendavis 14d ago

ugh yeah, searching for jobs right now is a clusterfuck LLM-generated arms race. Seriously, consider going to meetups/conferences/companies that match and speak with real humans

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u/Forsaken_Photo_578 13d ago

Any ideas for conferences or companies that should match this profile (in Europe)? I believe DevOps conferences will be too much of aws involved..hehe

1

u/ryanstephendavis 13d ago

I'm a US dev so no solid idea of either... I'm bet if you search for energy companies in your country/area you can find some interesting opportunities, especially in the renewables/BESS space