Embedded Job Market Recovered yet from 2000 crash?

Was there a crash in 2000 for embedded developers?

The simplest metric for me to observe is how often I'm called by recruiters. There was a time in 2000-ish when I was receiving more than one recruiter call per day. I had to leave my phone switched off to get any work done.

I don't know if "recovery" is the word I would choose, but if the real question is "are there embedded jobs about, and does employment seem to be on the uptick?" the answer is definitely yes. Unfortunately for me, most of the positions that recruiters call about are in locations to which I can't relocate (TX and AZ being especially popular - a few years ago, it was all CA).

Even Microsoft calls me more or less once a month, a different recruiter each time of course...

The spectrum is different these days - half a dozen years ago, there was a stronger mix of startups; these days it seems to be more the established big names (Freescale, Intel, Microsoft, etc). Of course, that may simply indicate that the startups no longer employ recruiters who go on cold-calling expeditions.

2001-2002 Hi-Tech suffered 20% unemployment. If you were luck enough to stay with your current employer thru this time, you lived a sheltered life. Today in Silicon Valley there are still 25% fewer Hi-Tech jobs than there were in 2000.

My impression of this is that the "hi-tech" statistic includes non-engineering jobs like database programming and HTML design, and these positions were major contributors to the unemployment rate. It was certainly the impression I got at the time. All those dotcom places going out of business imploded the market for people building MySQL backends and fancy Flash+Java eye candy. But this has virtually nothing to do with embedded engineering.

Certainly some EEs lost their jobs (I'm personally acquainted with at least two). But "a crash for embedded developers" implied to me that you were aware of some event that significantly and semi-permanently contracted the job supply for people specifically in our field. I'm not cognizant of any such event, unlike (say) the video game crash of the

1980s.

During that time period I quit a small (

This side of the pond there is definately a large increase in available jobs but there is marked reluctance for anyone to consider you unless you tick every one of the must haves plus some more.

Am currently looking for a new freelance contract but unless it's identical to the job I am doing now (which I don't want to do) no-one is bitting, even though the companies seems to have been looking for several months to find a match.

Am hoping that when I am literally in a position to start 'tomorrow' some more doors will open.

tim (a Brit, looking to go back home)

The dot com crash was preceeded by the little discussed crash of telecom companies attempting to build fiber to the home. They linked the cities, but no one could afford "the last mile" to the home. ATT fiber division laid off roughly 70% of workers, and then sold it to the japanese. An untold number of telecoms companies suffered the same fate. Many many telecom (embedded) jobs were lost in the 2000 crash.

Embedded developers did not dodge the crash. Employers quit hiring virtually all positions entirely. One could send out hundreds of resumes and not get a single reply. I personally know of several embedded developers that frequently got head hunter calls previous to 2000, but failed to get work for over a year after the 2000 crash.

I appreciate your response. I'm trying to get a feel for how things are today. Don't know if my current job will hold out. I've been "sheltered" last couple of years.

Ah, then I was aware of the "crash" but not its magnitude. Telecom in general seemed too volatile for me to get involved. Wireless hasn't been layoff-free either.

Telecom specialized? Come to think of it, one of the two guys I know is also an ex-telecom person.

Well, another metric that might give you good cheer: A _large_ percentage of my acquaintances have decided that this is a good time to jump ship. They feel that the opportunities now available are better than sitting in their current position. Churn, and more importantly the feeling that it's the right time to look for better employment, are _very_ positive things :) I'm constantly forwarding recruiters on to colleagues, to the point where my standard response to a cold call is "No, I'm not looking right now - but I have the following people looking for placements" :))))

In article , whynot writes

Where? locally in the Uk or somewhere foreign?

I understood that many were moving out of silicon valley to places where real estate is a 1/4 the price.

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\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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I'd agree with that from a UK perspective, although the vast majority of the jobs these days seem to be in Cambridge (wireless), the M4 corridor (telecomms), and the South West/South Coast (defence). The problem being they're three parts of the country I have absolutely no interest in working in... ;)

pete

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pete@fenelon.com [Support no2id.net: working to destroy Blair's ID card fraud]

In 2000, I was working for a telecoms company in the SW of England. I'd been headhunted, had moved from civilisation (Brighton) to the wilds (Devon), and would have been happy to stay there until I retired. My missus remembers me parking up in the evening and skipping up the (country cottage) garden path (mostly to amuse her, but also a genuine sign of contentment). When I saw a document stating that > 90% of all installed fibre was dark, I knew I was in trouble. The UK branch was closed within months. I went back to solo consultancy, and moved back east. I'm still sad about that.

The other thing I saw after that period was the outsourcing-to-India bullshit (mostly from companies with a US parentage). Clearly this wasn't about engineering, but about bean-counting. But it did make life difficult for me, as an embedded specialist, until maybe a year or two ago. I couldn't believe that CEOs could be so dumb, but since then my opinion of the cluefulness of USAnians in general has taken a dump bigtime - so hey...

Re headhunters: I get maybe 5-10 emails a day, but with rare exceptions, they're offering about half of what a decent practioner should be asking. Makes me wonder... especially when one of my clients went into receivership, and the receivers' hourly rate was about 7-15 times mine... Reminds me of an argument I had with an accountant - him: "but I save the company $large_sum in taxes" - me: "ok, but it's my work that generates the income in the first place"...

Spot the soapbox(es).

Steve

"Steve at fivetrees" writes: [snip]

Isn't it amazing how all the numbers converge to zero: costs, taxes, income,...