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by glassconclusion 1706 days ago
Do you have any tips on how to improve in the embedded domain? I've got some professional experience, mostly doing embedded application (MMU-less) development. I'm looking into linux driver development, but it feels a bit above my skill level.
2 comments
ktownsend 1706 days ago
If you want to improve, look at an open source project with a lot of momentum, and learn from what people are doing there.

I'm actively involved with Zephyr RTOS, for example, which is backed by the Linux Foundation and has people working on it full time from almost all the major MCU manufacturers. The development tends to correlate closely to Linux kernel as a model, and a lot of the key members were/are Linux kernel contribs, so skills learning with Zephyr can help you move to Linux dev later if you're new to it.

There is a non-trivial learning curve with Zephyr (device tree, KConfig, etc.), but it has more momentum than any RTOS I've seen in my career, and it has a very helpful community, while keeping the technical bar high.

If you prove your worth there, it's also an avenue that can possible even lead to job opportunities, which I've seen and benefited from myself.

That may or may not be of use, but if you want to improve in the embedded space, getting involved with something like Zephyr is some of the best use of limited time in my opinion to learn from some of the better embedded engineers working in the open.

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exikyut 1705 days ago
Wow, the list of supported targets is a tad longer than I've yet seen elsewhere: https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/boards/index.html
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ktownsend 1705 days ago
The number of PRs and committers is what boggles my mind ... it's an endless stream, which is highly unusual for an embedded project. This is where the momentum and technical investment is happening today for open source embedded, IMHO.
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matheusmoreira 1705 days ago
> I'm looking into linux driver development, but it feels a bit above my skill level.

Same here. I managed to reverse engineer some of my laptop's USB functions and write Linux drivers for them. That little driver was the most fulfilling software development project I have ever made. Tried the ACPI and I2C stuff but couldn't figure it out. I really want to learn it all but I don't even know where to start...

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