I just saw a post here that contained a job offering for people that are familiar with Arduinos....

My question has 3 parts:
1. Do you use Arduinos?
2: When do you use Arduinos?
3. What is your skill level with digital logic?

 

Hmmm "professional arduino" is a bit like Marines using "professional Nerf guns" or architects building skyscrapers out of "professional LEGO bricks" etc.

All joking aside, I would not get too excited about job opportunities for "professional Arduino engineers".

 

Arduinos as a platform are not anything a pro would have used. But if you are in the business of developing cheap shields to be sold expensive. You may need an Arduino expert

 

I am in no way excited about an Arduino position as this means that there are people out there that believe an Arduino is a viable engineering solution

This thread was more of a proof to a friend that Arduinos are never used in the professional workplace. I feel that an Arduino has no place aside from seeing if a sensor works. Aside from that, I think it's a pretty good place to start learning about electronics, but not the end-game.

 

I don't know of any production system that uses a controller with a bootloader.

Embedded PIC or processor, like ARM, or PLC in industrial applications.

Adruino is a fast prototype/idea test board. Once a general proof of concept is shown valid, the logic/flow is optimized and put on a secure storage such as FPGA or Firmware for a processor.

Arduino as a system is designed for hobbyists, and great in that area. Transferable skills are gained, but usually not enough.

I tend to think of Arduino as Apple, with the diehard fans who look down on any project without an Arduino. Professional developers will use whichever dev board meets the requirements for the prototype. Sometimes it may be an Arduino if it is a simple, low speed requirement.

Most programs needed and used are not much more than state machines shoehorned into a microcontroller. State machines are much faster to implement and run in logic, such as an FPGA, where the clock is in Ghz range, rather than high kHz/low Mhz range.

Applications that need a slight bit of "intelligence", but don't justify the power and I/O of an FPGA, but are larger than a few dozen logic gates, tend to go to PIC microcontrollers or similar.