Which is more in demand Programming FPGA or Programming MCU and which brings a high salary?

Thread Starter

mack38

Joined Nov 29, 2019
21
I want to take a decision on a career path “Programming FPGA” or “Programming MCU”.

My key parameters are : which one gives more salary considering other parameters constant, e.g. same year of experience, same company, same city, etc…

And also which one is more in demand, means after getting training which will give employment easily ?

FPGA requires either VHDL or VERILOG and MCU require C, C++, Assembly languages
 

OBW0549

Joined Mar 2, 2015
3,566
If you really want a high salary and to be in demand, start by learning both. Then add significant competence in analog and digital circuit design, power electronics, and dealing with sensors and actuators. If you want to get extra fancy, toss in RF design and communications technology.

The above may be somewhat overstated, but you can't expect to be very much in demand if your only expertise is in one small corner of embedded system design.
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,094
Programming the devices in and of itself is not worth anything on the salary scale. You can teach an entry level technician to do the programming of devices with prescribed tools and and object files. If by "programming" you meant generating the object code files used to program the devices then @OBW0549 has the correct take on the situation.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,932
I want to take a decision on a career path “Programming FPGA” or “Programming MCU”.

My key parameters are : which one gives more salary considering other parameters constant, e.g. same year of experience, same company, same city, etc…

And also which one is more in demand, means after getting training which will give employment easily ?

FPGA requires either VHDL or VERILOG and MCU require C, C++, Assembly languages
Other factors are never constant. Company A may pay the same person more for doing FPGA work than MCU work and Company B may be the reverse. Five years from now those same two companies may be in the opposite positions.

Learn both -- that places you in a position to compete for jobs in either area, which gives you the flexibility to put greater weight on other aspects of the market, such as who you would rather work for, or what kinds of projects you would rather work on, or where you would rather live, or whatever. Plus, you will invariably find that the more you learn about one, the more you will see ways that that knowledge can be applied to make you better at the other.

Finally, I strongly recommend minimizing your decision making based on salary considerations. This is not to say that it should play no part, but it should play a role only in it's proper perspective. Your money making potential in most fields will be based on YOUR ability to bring value to YOUR employers and/or customers, which is directly related to YOUR passion for becoming very good at what you do. If you decide to pursue Option A over Option B because the AVERAGE person makes more doing Option A even though YOU personally really like Option B, then there is a good chance that YOU will end up making a lot less doing Option A than YOU could have made doing Option B simply because you could have become so much better at Option B than you become at Option A.
 

Thread Starter

mack38

Joined Nov 29, 2019
21
If you really want a high salary and to be in demand, start by learning both. Then add significant competence in analog and digital circuit design, power electronics, and dealing with sensors and actuators. If you want to get extra fancy, toss in RF design and communications technology.

The above may be somewhat overstated, but you can't expect to be very much in demand if your only expertise is in one small corner of embedded system design.
In short, I will tell you my situation – I did 3 Master Degree (MCA, M.Sc (CS), M.Com in Bus Admin) [after one bachelor degree (it took almost 11 years after my High schooling) after that with very hard luck I got contract job with IBM (that was temporary 4 months), then after I got many contractor Job (no permanent), already worked with IBM 2 times, Cisco, Cognizant, NetApp, Avaya, Canal+, CapitalOne.

As all people on this forum are telling me that having multiple area skill will assure you a good salary and stable job but from past 12 years working as a contractor I learned and worked as Software Tester (9 testing tools), Business Analyst, ERP Integration Developer (oracle SOA Developer), ERP Solution architecture.

But today still I am out from job from many months and I am exhausted and demotivated to learn another new thing as I experienced in my life that no matter how many skills know or how much intelligent you are still there will be no stable career for an educated and knowledgeable person in India where I am from (maybe it same at other countries also).

But from the past few months I am doing self-study on MCU programming and I am easily understanding everything but I don't feel pleasant, also no motivation (due to my past experience).

I highly agree with what ‘Papabravo’ that “companies can teach an entry-level technician to do the programming” so good programming skills won’t make importance for an employee in the company.

On top of this, there is another reality what is, today in the IT industry if you have 10 different skills then there are 100 people having more than 10 skills so to compete it is very difficult and there is no importance even if you have a brain of scantest.


Can anybody tell me any one area where I will put my efforts and this time I will get a 100% job in a product company (not service-based company) on permanent and on a good salary? and the company will blindly omit my employment gaps. they simply give importance to my technicity or real experience and passion to work rather than the employment gap or having the multipurpose capability expectation (Which is many time un-realistic expectations), In reality, most of the time company themself don't need all skill but at the time of interview they expect multipurpose (all skill completely from very different areas) e.g. Java coder with dev-Ops with serve admin with DB Admin with testing with project management with two scripting knowledge with particular domain with certification and still some time they are not satisfied because at the end they realize 'Oh' the candidate have gap (although they are hiring a contractor who was a contractor already so all things will be natural)

In India, another biggest problem is IT politics, that which vendor/consultancy (3rd party) will give money/commission to approving officer (actual client in the recruitment team finalizing the selection of candidate) the company will hire that candidate and like that many more things happen and we people are victimized. So the rejection of a candidate happens on illogical factors as they have to pretend that selection happens in a natural way but it was in reality biased.
 
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WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,932
I don't think anybody has told you that anything will assure you of a good salary and a stable job. There are no such guarantees, less so today than in decades past. What we have been suggesting are ways to make your self more marketable for a broader array of opportunities so as to increase the likelihood of getting a stable and good paying job.

Since you didn't say anything location specific we didn't know that you are from India and asking only about India. So we (or at least I know I did) responded in as generic terms as we could -- but the more generic the advice, the less applicable it is likely to be a solid match for any particular situation.

I certainly have no firm idea what the job market is like in India. It is my understanding that India turns out a boatload of engineers every year but that the quality of the education is all over the place with a few extremely good schools and a very large number of diploma mills that churn out so many poorly educated engineers that a number of years ago it made the news here in the U.S. about how companies in India were outsourcing engineering work because they couldn't find qualified engineers among that sea of engineers. We have similar problems here but while I don't think they are nearly as severe as India's they are steadily getting worse.

So my guess is that your situation is going to hinge heavily on which end of the talent pool you swim around in -- I have no idea what that happens to be.

Your expectations are completely unrealistic. How can anybody tell you an area that is going to guarantee you a good job permanently with a good salary that will blindly ignore everything about you that you want them to ignore? The mere fact that this job is somehow guaranteed means that this company isn't going to even consider hiring anyone else for the position, regardless of how much better qualified they happen to be. Apparently this company is supposed to create a tailor-made job for your current skill set with no expectation that you should ever deepen or expand it regardless of what happens in the ever-changing world of technology.

You claim that you are passionate about working but the only thing you seem passionate about is finding someone that will guarantee you a lifetime, high-paying job where you can just use what you already know and don't have to compete with anyone else. You clearly are not passionate about the work itself because people that are passionate about something are eager to explore and gain new knowledge and skills -- it's rather central to the notion of being passionate about it.
 

OBW0549

Joined Mar 2, 2015
3,566
Can anybody tell me any one area where I will put my efforts and this time I will get a 100% job in a product company (not service-based company) on permanent and on a good salary?
The obvious answer to that question is "no." No one here can possibly guarantee you any such thing, since much depends on your own abilities, on the culture in which you live, and on its current and future economic condition.
 
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