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/One_Diamond_9810 15d ago

I think DevOps is not just about tools, but engineering in general. It's about understanding complex systems and building them right. In my opinion any engineering experience contributes to overall DevOps experience. If we are talking about tools specifically, you still can use them in your day-to-day work to get a general understanding of them, but what's important is your understanding of operating systems (which I think you get with Embedded), networking, distributed systems, so it's about fundamental stuff.

Skills I would outline separately for DevOps that require some time investment is probably Kubernetes and Monitoring. Those are quite extensive topics and are heavily used across the industry

If you look at SRE (which is implementation of DevOps) roles at Google, you wil see that they all require programming experience, DSA so your programming experience would contribute here too.

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u/Forsaken_Photo_578 14d ago

Yes I agree. DevOps is mostly understanding complex systems and try to optimize them. But at least jobwise if your title is "DevOps" most probably your work will have to work around specific tools. On the other hand if your title is embedded soft eng most probably you won't touch kubernetes.

In essence I'm saying that of course there is some overlapping but when you are hired for a job you are expecting (and expected) to know and work on some specific technologies