A Guide to a Career in Embedded Systems

Embedded systems serve as a bridge between traditional hardware and software. With artificial intelligence (AI), edge computing, and other advancements, embedded systems are experiencing meteoric growth in many vast and interdisciplinary subfields. So, the term embedded systems means different thing to different people in the industry. This article will help gain some important perspectives about this field and understand the nitty-gritty involved.

- Aaryaa Padhyegurjar

Venn diagrams and infographics are a great way to describe the interdisciplinary fields of embedded systems. Venn diagrams depict the nature of embedded systems based on the experiences of different designers. It is interesting to note that most of these diagrams are different from each other in certain aspects, but also have striking similarities.

Some examples are given in the figures that follow.

After looking at the diagrams, you will notice that in many cases embedded systems constitute the overlap between computer science and electrical engineering. So, the question that comes to mind is: What are the disciplines or areas of engineering that one must be familiar with in order to work with embedded systems?

Because embedded systems require programming, we need a background in computer science. We should be able to write reliable and efficient code. And because we shall be interacting with electronic devices like sensors and actuators, we need a sound knowledge of electronics.

That being said, you do not need to be a computer science graduate to do decent embedded systems development work. However, having a basic understanding of computer science may greatly assist you in organising your code into self-contained, reusable modules that are self-explanatory, easy to comprehend, and follow. Your code needs to be good enough for others (or even you) to extract source files that can be reused in other projects.