Companies are not willing to pay what the people who know embedded deserve. $150,000, $200,000 and up for a JavaScript webshit "engineer", $100,000 max if you work in embedded, unless you have a super specialist knowledge maintaining software on NASA's remaining PDP-11s or whatever that they can't afford to lose.
Fortunately that is incorrect. I mentioned in another comment, but I’m well over $100k USD equivalent in salary alone as an embedded engineer, working in a relatively low cost of living area in Canada, graduated 3 years ago. Working for a “regular” company.
Maybe things just really suck for embedded in the states? But since my last year of university I’ve been inundated with recruiters for embedded positions, and I’ve never had a problem finding work. ~75th percentile in salary alone for software engineers in my area, ~55th-60th for Canada. I make more than every JS developer I know who graduated with me, except for the ones who moved to Seattle, Vancouver, or the Bay.
