[sho_hn]

Preface: I can't do this (specifically). But I have done many types of software development across two decades. My journey began with LAMP-style web work, took me to C++ and the desktop (apps, GUI toolkits, browser engines), then to embedded - from smart TVs to smart speakers, to network protocols for drone systems and beefy car infotainment ECUs and lower-level microcontroller/borderline electronics work.

My conclusion: You can get into just about anything, and for the most part the difficulty level is fairly uniform. But there's simply a vast sea of domain-specific spec knowledge out there. It doesn't mean that it's too hard for you or you can't learn it. Anything that is done at scale will fundamentally be approachable by most developers. Just be prepared you'll need to put in the time to acquire a familiarity with the local standards/specs and ways of doing things. Knowledge turns seemingly hard things into easy things, and if it's been done before chances are it's documented somewhere.

The truly hard stuff is innovating/doing things that haven't been done before. Novel development happens rarely.

[bartvk]

Yeah, this is my conclusion too. I moved from the Oracle platform to embedded, scientific stuff like reading out custom electronics for IR cameras. And now I'm into iOS apps. It's more a question of what part of the stack feels interesting and doable to you, at a certain period in your professional life.

[cmurf]

>acquire a familiarity with the local standards/specs

And with the bugs. Especially with bootloaders because you're in a preboot environment.