Ask HN: Will an EE get any attention in the software world?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34733605

by engeljohnb • 3 years ago

2 7 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I want to go back to school to become a software engineer; however, after seeing all the headlines about layoffs from the biggest software companies, I'm afraid I'll just be leaving a stable career for a turbulent one.

When looking at potential colleges, I noticed that for most of them the "Computer Engineering" degree was mostly similar to the "Electrical Engineering" degree --almost identical for the first three years.

I wonder if an electrical engineering degree would give me most of the same learning as a computer engineering degree, and would open more doors in case all the software jobs dry up: a fallback.

I would love to hear what working engineers think. Sorry to give my life story, I tried to keep it short.

A couple things that may be worth mentioning:

- I'm already confident in my programming skills. I'm sure I could get to a professional skill level without a degree, I just want the advantage of a degree for the job search.

- The schools I'm looking at only offer Computer Science and Computer Engineering (no "Software Engineering" degrees), and I'm already sure I'm not interested in a computer science degree.

throwawaysalome• 3 years ago

EE is a real man's field. Heavy math, heavy physics.

"Computer Engineering" and CS fields, generally, are nothing of the sort.

keikobadthebad• 3 years ago

If you have a strong story about code you have produced, preferably FOSS people can go look at, that is worth more than a second degree. The first degree already shows what people looking for 'degree educated' want to see.

You're better advised to contribute to high profile projects like linux kernel and make your own projects while still being paid as an EE.

Particularly embedded stuff, your EE knowledge will help inform software choices and your software knowledge will inform your hardware choices.

ThrowawayR2• 3 years ago

What flavor of EE would you even get[1]? Power EE? Useless for software development. RF EE? Useless for software development. Microelectronics EE? Useless for software development. Chip design (analog or digital) EE? Useless for software development. Digital design EE or CompE? Slightly useful if you're doing IoT/embedded systems but that's a tiny sliver of jobs in an ocean of web front end and back end jobs. You get the picture.

If you get an EE/CompE degree but go into software, 1) future EE/CompE employers will assume that you weren't lucky enough or good enough get a job as an EE out of college (the job market isn't exactly hot for engineers and never has been) and 2) your EE/CompE knowledge will atrophy rapidly from disuse because almost no software jobs outside a few specialties require frequent use of that knowledge.

[1] A randomly chosen university's list of EE concentrations: https://www.ese.upenn.edu/undergraduate-2/electrical-enginee...

remote_phone• 3 years ago

I have EE and have been programming for decades now.

soasdfg• 3 years ago

Unless you have an EE degree from an Ivy league school, not really.

It definitely won't hurt you and anyone who is an engineer reading your resume will be more likely to give you a shot after seeing that you completed a rigorous degree, but engineers aren't the ones reading your resume when you're starting out unfortunately.

I say this as someone who has a EE degree (not from an Ivy league, but a well known engineering school) and found it pretty challenging to switch into software engineering here in SV, although with persistence it did finally happen.

I agree that your time is much better spent learning the skills that are in demand for the kind of software work you want to do eventually, web dev is going to give you the biggest pool of companies to send your resume to and is one of the easier areas to get yourself up to speed on without having to go back to school. If you have your heart set on a very specific field that could benefit from more school, then I would agree that finding a program to study this in more detail could be really interesting for you and help you in your search for jobs.

sircastor• 3 years ago

The schools I'm looking at only offer Computer Science and Computer Engineering (no "Software Engineering" degrees), and I'm already sure I'm not interested in a computer science degree.

I have a software engineering degree. It’s essentially a CS degree missing a couple of 3rd/4th year courses (Operating systems and networking for mine) and has a couple of adjacent courses (project management and team stuff).

The “degree in a related field” component of programming jobs is largely a filter, and has begun to have less effect over the last few years as non-degree-holding programmers have shown they can be quite adept at software development.

CE and EE are hard work degrees. There’s lots of math, and lots of theory. I would study them if you have a genuine interest.

I would not worry about the layoffs happening now. Software isn’t going anywhere. This is just big companies trying to appease Wallstreet. They’ll be hiring again in no time.

magic_man• 3 years ago

EE AND CE are very similar. You can do a few different classes and you can get CE degree.

Ask HN: Will an EE get any attention in the software world?

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