No doubt, your embedded world presents incredibly difficult problems -- arguably much trickier ones than most web jobs out there. Keep in mind, as the OP and author, I'm comparing the "average" embedded job or desktop software job to the "average" web job. Perhaps I should have made this distinction clearer in the blog article. Most employed embedded engineers do not work on problems as tough as the ones which you describe.
But to me, the biggest challenge with web is the unforgiving avalanche of emerging new technologies a practicing professional must keep abreast of, literally during every spare second of their life, if he or she is to remain employed !! This unrelenting blizzard of new algorithms, new languages, new frameworks, new design methodologies is just another typical day in the life of a highly competent and employable web engineer.
The resource-limited embedded problems at your company are "old school". I'm not saying they're easy, but do the tools and technologies needed to solve such problems change much through the years ?
But to me, the biggest challenge with web is the unforgiving avalanche of emerging new technologies a practicing professional must keep abreast of, literally during every spare second of their life, if he or she is to remain employed !! This unrelenting blizzard of new algorithms, new languages, new frameworks, new design methodologies is just another typical day in the life of a highly competent and employable web engineer.
The resource-limited embedded problems at your company are "old school". I'm not saying they're easy, but do the tools and technologies needed to solve such problems change much through the years ?