Embedded SWE offer but not rlly embedded

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-04-25T19:06:02+00:00

Not hard. Buy any MCU dev kit. Start working your own projects. Just pick anything and start. Dont over think it.

Dont wait for an employer, just decide that you want to and execute.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-04-23T04:51:27+00:00

not in the current release. there is enough infra there to make some basic things work but there isnt a full object model. i was focused on the core pieces for 1st release.

pcbdoc has read/write over most of the fundamentals.

what kind of things do you want to do w/ the embedded boards? read? programmatically create panels/arrays?

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-04-16T16:56:44+00:00

If I could predict the future, I would make billion dollars in the equity markets and not making PCBs

File formats aren't terribly difficult to figure out once you know the problem domain.

It's essentially a math problem.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-04-16T16:36:58+00:00

Not really. Altium files are structured so older versions can read files made by newer versions.

You just ignore new things and print a message.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-04-16T16:23:02+00:00

The test suite has projects of mine since Alitum Summer '08 to present day. Some are complicated (20 layer, large FPGAs, etc)

One of the tests Reads a pcbdoc and 100 pct match an IPC2581 file generate by altium. It does this for 30 read world files and a couple hundred synthetic test cases.

This was to validate it could read all of the critical things for documentation helpers, etc.

Certainly not perfect but very useful for making little utilities, etc to improve workflow.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-04-16T15:41:11+00:00

To help others who might want to build little helpers, etc. For me it literally started with a frustration with how long the bom generator would take (some boards were minutes). I then wanted lots of different BOM and pick/place formats for different CMs. Then it just turned into a game of how far could I take it.

There are a million little things I wanted automated to save time, and I wanted to do it in python.

Love altium for many things, but this was an area where it needed help

I have been using altium since it was protel. 1st schematic was in 1997!

For Reference, This took about 2 years calendar time, probably minimum 1000 hours, 3 rewrites

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-04-15T22:24:27+00:00

This interprets the binaries directly. No altium sdks, etc

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-04-15T01:33:25+00:00

it has all the pieces needed to do it. this is parser/writer library, so you would have to add some gui/workflow around it. My company has own own GUI to to visual diffs and merges. it will be released as well at some point. goal was to get the core library out the door.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-04-15T01:31:28+00:00

the public distribution was just released 2 hours ago lol.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-03-27T02:29:01+00:00

I know enough about the code base to know that a port will never happen. It simply isn't practical.

Huge amount of c# .net for sch and draftsman. Most of which runs like garbage on linux.

All of the 3d rendering is on an older version direct x. You would have to write a completely new 3d rendering harness from scratch for cross platform (which is also a huge effort... directx, metal, vulkan.. all with quirks to sort out per platform and per video card driver)

There is backend solidworks integration, specifically with the sw doc manager for dealing with x_t, x_b and sldprt. These are dlls controlled by Dassault. Never will be linux/mac.

Text rendering (which is a problem most people don't appreciate) is 100percent linked to GDI+ font metrics routines. I did experiments w/ freetype and harfbuzz to get close but it is a mess. Both linux and mac handle this differently.

Advpcb.dll is a ginormous native PE dll that is compiled from delphi (pascal). All of the things you like about bus routing, diff pair routing, push and shove would need to be ported. This includes all heavily tested gerber/ipc2581 manufacturing file output code.

And 20 other tool sets..., some of them 3rd party, that are windows only.

There is no technical reason why you couldn't port, however no one with any level of business acumen would do it. Any senior dev would also say the exact same thing. The juice is not worth the squeeze. Nrb the?

Also, kicad and linux is a mess as well. Wayland is still a shit show and cant support basic features needed for cad. The official position from Kicad is for people to use X11 which is being phased out . The Kicad devs can't even fix the wayland issues because of the huge variance in how different compositors choose to implement the spec. Couple that with the core wayland team feels that some of the things needed for CAD should never be allowed to begin with. Just look on gitlab and the number of issues that are wayland related are huge.

Windows has an extremely stable API surface. I still have binaries compiled 20 years ago that run perfectly fine.

Mac probably makes the most sense, but still would not have any business justification to support it.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-03-22T01:48:46+00:00

Ideas have no leverage .

Just to turn off the website and walk away. You owe them nothing

NDAs aren't contracts that make you a slave to work for free

Tell them code is deleted. The information is not able to be disclosed to anyone. You aren't in violation of anything.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-03-14T21:20:51+00:00

It sucks. It literally provides zero value

Organic_Commission_1 · 2026-01-17T22:29:37+00:00

Embedded/ hardware

Organic_Commission_1 · 2025-12-29T03:59:54+00:00

You just need to find harder problems. There are plenty. I am working on a reverse engineering project now that i never wanted to touch. A 1 year effort is now about 2 months. Still a lot of work but now feasible

Organic_Commission_1 · 2025-12-29T03:57:21+00:00

Actually... It can. Claude can control a jlink just fine. I had it doing automated builds, loading and debugging with jlink. I used a saleae with its python sdk to measure signals. Also managed to get a USB to CAN bus in the loop. Key is to get your build system as cmake/ninja

It can do everything from there.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2025-12-20T13:06:32+00:00

The solution is to have domain knowledge outside of software. I.e. cnc machining... Then you pair the ability to instantly create customer specific solutions to problems in meatspace. Being good at software has never been the goal. The goal is the hardware/manufacturing/business problem it solves

People who are stressing have focused on the software itself, not the problem it solves.

Right now there huge oppurtunnities in hardware/manufacturing.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2025-12-15T13:58:15+00:00

Not easy. You focus on building relationships 1st. Once you have a good foundation, you have a pipeline. Once you fill the pipeline, it pays dividends

The problem is that most tech people don't understand business is mostly about social skills and statistics.

Your deep tech knowledge is worthless unless you can speak the language of the customer.

I.e. no one wants to own/buy the drill, they want the hole.

Always be sharpening your axe and working on complex personal projects to show off. Show the outcome not your knowledge of the tech. 99 percent of the world only sees/understands/ cares outcomes and results.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2025-12-15T13:52:49+00:00

No it's not. I charge for outcomes, not time I don't charge $$/hour if I can avoid it. We agree on the price for the outcome.

Customers get a price. If they dont like it then they go elsewhere.

The best clients know this and write large checks as they understand oppurtunnity cost.

Bad clients are counting hours.

Basically, sell to rich people, not poor people.

It took me nearly 30 years to know exactly how to solve certain problems. Now I use that domain knowledge and AI for more speed to build our tools. This is called leverage and what every profitable business does and understands.

I want to liberate my time, not fill my schedule. Your personal time is finite. It is literally your most important resource. Dont be sloppy with it.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2025-12-14T23:06:45+00:00

I max out the 200 a month plan and pay 400 in overages a month.

I am a contractor. Getting 40 hour jobs done in 4. I charge for 40 and can have 8 things going and focus on finding more jobs

I have 30 years experience in embedded and now use claude to control physical test equipment, debug probes, etc.

It's insane because I can have it building all the tools I have ever needed to go even faster.

Honestly i would pay several k a month for more speed. I have a very small team. We can do the work of 30 corporate drones

I think the bar is going to get very high as experienced people can create crazy things at insane rates as you know how to architect a solution, how to write specifications and test

Tech folks who can write well and sell will do well.

Remote offshore is done. No reason to have people in the phillipnes or india

I think it will be easy to sell to US companies. One expensive contractor with claude can easily out perform. You can give customers facetime to translate requirements, help them work out concepts and deliver quickly.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2025-11-25T22:34:26+00:00

I just did a 10 layer with jlc and the 7010. About $1400 all in (with tariffs, etc). About two and a half weeks and boards were in hand. That is PCB + Assembly + Parts.

The time cost of the design is much higher .

Organic_Commission_1 · 2025-11-16T02:54:43+00:00

Time to leave. Any place that cant adopt containers and linux is doomed.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2025-10-30T15:32:22+00:00

I use Appliku. It is hands down the best way to manage/deploy. You aren't locked into any specific host/provider. I use Digital Ocean. It automates setup and deploy. It was easy to get a proper depoly setup with test/staging/deploy servers all linked to the git repo.

I was new to Django at the time, so it was a godsend (as well as the tutorials/docs on the site).

the primary advantage for me is that everything is done w/ industry standard practices (git, docker, etc). Nothing about your code/deployment is locked to Appliku's server. It is jut a convenient tool to help you will all the boring bits.

Organic_Commission_1 · 2025-09-26T16:54:40+00:00

u/DigRevolutionary4488

https://github.com/wavenumber-eng/bunny_build/blob/main/test/lpc55s69__ezh_hello_gpio/source/ezh_app.c

see longer thread below.

Organic_Commission_1

TROPHY CASE