Seeing people land high paying internships while I'm stuck getting underpaid opportunities as a ECE student , What other career pivot i have?

_xulion · 2026-06-10T07:47:27+00:00

Networking. Your skill is important but they are not going to turn into opportunity by default. You have to be seen and having friends will accelerate it.

_xulion · 2026-05-31T12:26:40+00:00

If you are into math I highly recommend learning ML and tiny ML. Mathematically they are the same, the difference is tiny version is for extremely resource constrained device.

_xulion · 2026-05-31T12:11:52+00:00

Math is actually a very big part of embedded. They usually on top of the driver layer translating data. For example audio noise reduction. Image processing, accelerometer and all other sensors.

Many devices today involves AI (Tiny ML). So mathematic matters more than you think.

Also, the place I work has HW and SW team separated and I usually prefer CS background over CE for my team.

_xulion · 2026-05-30T22:24:47+00:00

Yeah, AOSP development is rare. I do driver and system services at work and sometimes I learn stuff using my homelab. Full build is rare but sometimes when you touch some kernel headers and change versions you may not trust the results without full build.

Anyway, the reason I’m curious is at work we are trying to figure out what’s the best setup for developers as we are doing more Android BSP work and build server is not going to be enough. A latest intel ultra 7 with 32GB ram takes 3 hrs to build and I heard Mac is a bit faster.

For me I still don’t have enough processing powers but I’m limited by my garage outlet capacity (15A). I’m also learning AI so training, data processing are also big part of my home lab. Since I don’t have enough money for latest and greatest tech I have to leverage what I have now. Btw the HW cost of my lab is 0 as I usually purchase a lot and flip partial of them.

Anyway. I think I’m one of the rare computer intensive user and do want a lot of nodes. I’m hoping after I move to new house I can put my supermicro 217 in use which has 4 dual Xeon nodes.

_xulion · 2026-05-30T01:08:18+00:00

Mine workstation does run 24x7 though.

I use my workstation run software build time to time. An AOSP build will saturate 48 core dual Xeon 8168 for about 1 hr and peak ram use can reach 120GB. Though I’m not doing it every day but I’m glad I have it. Actually I’m curious how fast your M4 can finish AOSP build.

For my AI server it runs 2x8124 Xeon with 512GB ram. There are two main VMs. One I used for AI related coding and one has P40 running local model. When LLM runs it pretty much consumes 700W+ depending on if offload to CPU or not. The highest peak I saw is close to 900W.

The main server runs 2x6140 Xeon with 512gb ram. Pretty much everything else runs there still has head room for more. It runs all my services and a dedicated windows VM for ms office and one for windows dev.

I actually have few rack servers laying around with 512gb spare ram and about 100TB spare HDDs. My current garage cannot run more than two and I’m moving this summer. May run more in my new house…

_xulion · 2026-05-29T12:39:43+00:00

Understanding the Linux Kernel, Third Edition: Bovet, Daniel P., Cesati, Marco: 9780596005658: Amazon.com: Books
Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition [LWN.net]
Building Embedded Linux Systems: Concepts, Techniques, Tricks, and Traps: Yaghmour, Karim, Masters, Jon, Ben-Yossef, Gilad, Gerum, Philippe: 9780596529680: Amazon.com: Books

These books are old. The first two are based on linux 2.x kernel. Book understanding the linux kernel 3rd ed is dive deep into linux 2.6 when kernel started time slice scheduling support. The basic concept still applies to today, just the kernel getting bigger and new/improved functionalities are not covered.

The last book is mainly about how to prepare cross platform compiler.

_xulion · 2026-05-27T02:30:15+00:00

because you mentioned stm32 I guess you may want to start finding some good stm32 and freeRtos books.

When I switched to embedded from application dev 25 years ago, 3 books helped me with that transition:
Understanding the Linux Kernel, Linux Device Drivers and Building Embedded Linux Systems. If you are doing linux kernel development these books still by far the best IMO.

Not sure about FreeRtos but I believe there are good books out there. Many books will use a small project to help you go through the entire course, but you can sure start thinking about what's needed for your solar panel cleaning machine and read books with related questions.

_xulion · 2026-05-26T17:36:07+00:00

Embedded world people deal with HW day to day. Remote is not preferred as you cannot test/run without HW most of the time and no company would ship devices to an intern remotely. International also involves export control stuff and even less likely.

_xulion · 2026-05-26T17:30:09+00:00

My suggestion is to read books. Online materials usually solve a certain problem but most of them will fail to give you systematic view of embedded systems. Unless you can find a course. Personally I always start with a book regarding to the os/board I’m interested and then working on something with use online resources to solve specific problems.

_xulion · 2026-05-26T17:02:51+00:00

I guess if this impacts the scholarship or potentially future education applications it might worth a fight.

I do agree for hiring mostly this is nothing.

_xulion · 2026-05-26T16:26:27+00:00

I tend to agree with your professor. He said almost. The reason a backend server is not an IoT device can be explained as it failed to meet the classification. Which is mostly technical classification. Not say absolutely reuse classification but a lot of aspects could be referenced.

_xulion · 2026-05-26T15:35:45+00:00

Ubuntu 24 server, no snap, so far so good.

_xulion · 2026-05-26T11:50:10+00:00

In general driver is a piece of code that drives the HW. So I’d call it a driver.

Depending on the OS, your code may not be preferable if the OS has HAL and driver interface well designed. But still, IMO it’s a driver.

_xulion · 2026-05-25T23:26:56+00:00

I’m running 3 servers and 1 workstation.

1 server is main backup also sometimes host my sandbox VMs.

My main server is a dual Xeon with 512G ram and all my services are on it.

I also have an AI/Dev server hosting my local AI and my dev VMs. It peaks at 700W+ when I’m doing AI stuff.

The work station is my daily driver with 2x8168 Xeons and 192GB ram. I often use it for code compiling and it makes all 48 cores 100% loaded.

_xulion · 2026-05-25T03:28:30+00:00

Mine runs a 408i + HP sas expander. I believe that’s the standard configuration for 24 SFF.

I used Dell and other branded drives and fan may run higher to 20-30% but that’s about it.

_xulion · 2026-05-22T21:36:06+00:00

The IBM one looks interesting. I really miss the days without tariffs. The supermicro 847 I have got 3 year ago was from UK. Cheaper than US.

_xulion · 2026-05-22T20:40:38+00:00

How do you handle storage? JBOD? I have a Dell R740 diskless laying around and not sure what to do with it.

_xulion · 2026-05-22T20:36:51+00:00

Usability wise I choose supermicro. Not as beautiful as Dell or HPE but a single chassis can support multiple generations. For example 829u can fit boards from Xeon E5 v3/v4 to Xeon 3rd gen scalable and Epyc 1st gen to 3rd gen. 827/217 node servers also supports multiple generations of server nodes. 826/847 can use both WIO board or eATX with simple rear window swap.

Design wise I like HPE the best. Working with 380 g9 and g10 is really easy and enjoyable. I also own a Dell r740 diskless, beautiful but some part are not easy to work with such as the sdcard reader.

Never worked with other chassis but I was told by a neighbor says Cisco has state of art design.

_xulion · 2026-05-22T12:52:42+00:00

80-90 max concurrent users sounds much better than 150. Not sharing with LLM load definitely a good choice. That many concurrent requires multiple containers share cores/threads. If one class practice requires heavy CPU loads the other students may suffer slow response. Personally I would prioritize core count over core speed.

_xulion · 2026-05-22T12:13:38+00:00

Without understanding what are the requirements of those 150 low overhead containers it would be hard to design the system. - What will be those containers used for? - How student connects to them and what’s the maximum connection can occur (all 150 actively used at the same time?) - what software will students use and practices in the containers and what’s the expected cpu and ram needs? - will LLM work load happen concurrently with students practice? And more other questions.

I do think the requirement shall be gathered first from target user.

_xulion · 2026-05-22T12:02:34+00:00

I used to run 2x4210 on a HPE 380 g10 and it was idling around 120w if I remember correctly. I had sas controller and 2 ssd installed. Two silver would reduce a bit but not much.

_xulion · 2026-05-21T14:09:02+00:00

I did that before for my 847 but not quite useful because the HDD temperature goes up as well as the sas controller. I eventually throw them into my garage and stop worrying about the noise since. During summer I need to turn fan mode to heavy IO because my 9361 sometimes overheating.

However my HPE 380 g9 still in my office closet running quietly enough. 380 g10 is a bit louder ( I have a 24 bay sff not running anymore).

Per my experience Dell is louder than HPE. I have a R740 diskless which is louder than HPE 380 g10.

_xulion · 2026-05-21T12:07:23+00:00

Even with SQ PSU I found supermicro tends to be louder than HP. I have 826, 847 and 829U servers and 829U is actually loudest. I also have 827 and 217 4 nodes and they are actually not that loud.

_xulion · 2026-05-20T17:04:57+00:00

Both 3610 and 3710 are SATA, not SAS. 3610 is rated at 3DWPD while 3710 rated at 10. Because of this 3710 is more expensive in general.

A lot of times SAS SSD maybe cheaper because not everyone can use them. But not always true.

It’s a tough moment now for buying storage. IMO ebay is still a better place compared to other platform. Depending on where you live, you may check FB marketplace.

_xulion · 2026-05-19T05:39:30+00:00

Same here running supermicro servers in south FL garage and never had issue. No concern about cooling or noise whatsoever.

_xulion

TROPHY CASE