> There isn't as much pressure in tech to deliver low level results quickly.
This isn't my experience. Companies producing hardware or devices tend to think hardware-first. Any firmware or software that needs to be developed is often over-trivialised. The way management sees it is that driver/firmware development eats into profits, so it needs to be done quickly. "It's just software". I'd like to hear what stories other people have.
> Companies producing hardware or devices tend to think hardware-first
This was my experience. I worked as a firmware developer for a company producing computer hardware. The attitude of management was “the product is perfect then firmware breaks it”. Never mind that the thing didn’t work without firmware.
The concrete result was that it was impossible to get support from hardware teams. You would chase some weird bug for weeks, be ghosted by your supposed hardware support contact. Then finally chase the guy out to his car at 6:00 pm and find out, “oh yeah, we changed the address of that register, guess we forgot to update the software interface doc. I’ll update the errata tomorrow.” (obviously he never did).
"We'll fix it in software" was a common statement from management at an early job. It's a very frustrating thing, hilariously (or sadly?) they even put "will be waterproof" under the software requirements for one system. That was an actual mistake, but given the general theme of the place it was conceivable at first that it was deliberate.
In my experience, it depends wildly on how much of the special sauce is in hardware vs. software. Companies that work on mature technology (ex. ECG) but have to continuously improve the signal processing tend to view software as the hard part. Companies where you're building fundamentally new hardware tend to view software as the trivial part.
Interesting counter-point about companies where low-level software is user-facing. Embedded systems probably would be another one. I was talking more about the software tech, closer to "big tech".
This isn't my experience. Companies producing hardware or devices tend to think hardware-first. Any firmware or software that needs to be developed is often over-trivialised. The way management sees it is that driver/firmware development eats into profits, so it needs to be done quickly. "It's just software". I'd like to hear what stories other people have.