I have worked in firmware for almost my entire software career and I agree completely. The main problem is that most embedded software programmers started out as EE's (like me) and never learned how to architect or build complex software systems. The ones who took the time to learn CS & SE produce noticeably better code and with their knowledge of electronics can do amazing things, but the rest... well, I still remember trying to explain to an EE developer during a code review why "#define ZERO 0" was still a Magic Number!
Bringing back horrible memories. I ended up with an EE degree, but I was two or three core classes away from a CompE. The software literacy has been nice throughout my career[1], but I was never able to swing into any of the firmware development groups at my previous employer. Closest I got was some systems engineering that covered custom FPGAs and off-the-shelf signal processing hardware. Now I will probably never make it past the gatekeepers for any kind of embedded job.
What the embedded industry needs is more systems engineering. Not taking an EE and saying, "Poof, you're a systems engineer now!", but actual, interdisciplinary engineers who understand systems development concepts, requirements analysis, safety analysis, and everything else that goes along with it. Its primarily an aerospace thing right now, but it really should expand to the broader field.
[1] In fact, at the moment I am a pure software engineer.
I know :-(
I have worked in firmware for almost my entire software career and I agree completely. The main problem is that most embedded software programmers started out as EE's (like me) and never learned how to architect or build complex software systems. The ones who took the time to learn CS & SE produce noticeably better code and with their knowledge of electronics can do amazing things, but the rest... well, I still remember trying to explain to an EE developer during a code review why "#define ZERO 0" was still a Magic Number!