Silicon Valley seems to get most of the press as being the place to work for software engineers. While that may be the case for computer software engineers, Detroit is the place to be right now if you are an embedded software engineer. While Detroit receives national headlines for its high unemployment rate, there is virtually no unemployment for those that have the necessary skills as an embedded software engineer.

This resurgence in the hiring of software engineers has been driven by the strong comeback of the automotive industry over the past year. Talking with automotive hiring managers and recruiters reveals that there is no more difficult position to fill right now than that of an embedded software engineer. That represents quite a turnaround from just 3 years ago when the financial crisis hit in full force and brought the U.S. automotive industry to its knees. The massive restructuring that followed left many engineers without jobs and those that still had a job were left hanging on for dear life just hoping that their job would not be next. While that may have marked the low point, the hiring of engineers within the automotive industry really has never fully recovered from those massive cuts that occurred in the wake of the recession that followed 9/11. While the automotive industry itself experienced strong growth from 2002-2007, companies were very slow to hire after being cut off-guard from the 2001 recession. Most of the hiring that did occur was outsourced to lower cost locations such as Mexico, India, Brazil and Eastern Europe. This resulted in many local software engineers leaving automotive for growth industries such as health, defense, alternative energy, and the Internet. Meanwhile the number of graduating software engineers entering the automotive industry plummeted.

Times have changed very quickly now for the better in the automotive industry. While the outsourcing trend has not stopped, the strength of the current recovery has the automotive OEMs and suppliers alike hiring engineers again locally. The pace of technology in automotive did not slow down during financial crisis and, in fact, the case can be made that it has never moved faster. With the growth of electric and hybrid vehicles and the explosion of vehicle infotainment options, there is a strong pent up demand for engineers to develop these new technologies. With more of this new technology software-driven, the need for qualified embedded software engineers has never been greater. The problem is that there is very little talent out there that is not already employed. While this is great news for those software engineers that already have jobs and may be looking for new opportunities, this is not good news for the U.S. automotive industry as a whole. Innovation will not slow down and wait and there is a real fear that Detroit could once again be left behind. The U.S. automotive industry must now face the challenge of recruiting the new talent necessary to continue its current comeback.