Embedded software engineering roles (under paid?)

[paulca]

I thought I would take a look out further from my sector (financial).  Thought I'd look for IoT and embedded jobs in the UK.

I found plenty, seems very active, lots of new startup as you would expect.

Then the music stopped with a Srrreeeectt across the vinyl and I looked at the salaries.

They have roles for 10 year experience Principal embedded C programmers and they are offering...  £45k.  What?  £45 wouldn't buy you a very good "Senior" i the financial sector, let alone a principal.  I'm not saying what I'm earning, but when I get a call from a recruitment agency they are saying £70-75k is achievable with 10+ years experience in Java Enterprise, locally.

Or maybe... glass door et. al.  are only listing the vacancies people are finding hard to fill and the salary is why.  Maybe I should check the in job reviews for standing salaries (if they publish them).

[dave j]

It's always been the case. Finance has the money, others areas don't. I worked for a bank and several of my colleagues had switched from embedded to financial. One even switched from working on flight simulators, the sort they train pilots on rather than games, because the money was so much better.

[Miyuki]

I'm a mid-level embedded programmer with an overlap to electronics design and I know these positions are paid less than for example Java, C# ...
But if it is £45k gross then it will be low even for central Europe where wages are way smaller than in the UK.
They are trying to attract someone from Eastern Europe or third-world countries.
But at least here rates are not fixed but heavily negotiated in wild ranges.

[Warhawk]

I had two different colleagues programming embedded. One was a talented junior, the other one a seasoned senior embedded programmer.
The first one went for web coding, the other one for C# and Java. The second one is a good friend of mine. He pretty much tripled the salary three years after the change.

I don't know what is C# or Java programming like. However, I somehow think that embedded is difficult and requiring wide range of skills. For some reason it is paid rather poorly.