>who feel the same, and who are serious about software engineering, isn't easy!
So what you're saying is that you have a hard time finding people experienced and passionate about your extremely small niche? I'm sure I'd have a hard time finding qualified child neurologists willing to work for < 200k as well.
I'd hardly call embedded work an extremely small niche. Now, what he's doing on them may or may not be. But microcontrollers on the whole are a much bigger industry than personal computing. You'll find many more 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers in any given house than you will Intel or AMD 32/64 bit general purpose microprocessors. Last I checked approximately half of all CPUs sold globally were 8-bit.
So what you're saying is that you have a hard time finding people experienced and passionate about your extremely small niche? I'm sure I'd have a hard time finding qualified child neurologists willing to work for < 200k as well.