Think hard about it, personally I think everything has a shelf life. You might be more engaged for 5 years or so then back at square one within a less profitable industry.
I went straight to embedded after grad school. I enjoy it well enough, more than I think I'd enjoy pure software/web stuff. But at the end of the day it's a job not a passion. If I won the lottery I think I'd be perfectly happy never touching it again. I wonder if I should have gone the software route and taken a job I might even actively dislike for 1.5-2x the the money and remote work which would put more time and money into the rest of my life.
If you still want to go down that path look into embedded Linux for IOT type applications. My product has both microcontroller firmware and a Linux SBC. Hiring for the Linux side is difficult, currently we farm it out to a good but not great team overseas. If you have solid Linux skills, a good handle on build systems, and the ability to bring up modern software best practices in testing and deployment from scratch (most embedded shops are way behind the curve here) you'll be seen as a rockstar. Can probably command a higher salary than the average firmware dev since you're "software" but still a hit compared to FAANG/Unicorn web programming.
I went straight to embedded after grad school. I enjoy it well enough, more than I think I'd enjoy pure software/web stuff. But at the end of the day it's a job not a passion. If I won the lottery I think I'd be perfectly happy never touching it again. I wonder if I should have gone the software route and taken a job I might even actively dislike for 1.5-2x the the money and remote work which would put more time and money into the rest of my life.
If you still want to go down that path look into embedded Linux for IOT type applications. My product has both microcontroller firmware and a Linux SBC. Hiring for the Linux side is difficult, currently we farm it out to a good but not great team overseas. If you have solid Linux skills, a good handle on build systems, and the ability to bring up modern software best practices in testing and deployment from scratch (most embedded shops are way behind the curve here) you'll be seen as a rockstar. Can probably command a higher salary than the average firmware dev since you're "software" but still a hit compared to FAANG/Unicorn web programming.