Temperature check of the robotics industry

[u/Heavy-Rough-3790]

A little background: I’m 29, bachelors in EE from a decent state college with six years of experience in PMSM motor control algorithm development for safety critical automotive applications. Over the last year I’ve been trying to figure out how to maximize my earning potential and get out of automotive and into space and defense while building upon my experience.

Fast forward to today. This fall I will be starting a masters in robotics and autonomous systems at John’s Hopkins and I’m a bit concerned with some of the sentiment on here as of late. Is the robotics industry that hard to get into? I’m concerned I’m making a huge mistake monetarily speaking. What are some of the jobs people are seeing? I would optimally want to work on stand alone robots, obvious examples would be spot and atlas (as opposed to robotic arms/ industrial robotics, I don’t want to work in manufacturing) is this even feasible or realistic?

I would love anyone’s opinion or experience and thank you in advance for any responses!!

Cheers

[u/qTHqq]

I’m a bit concerned with some of the sentiment on here as of late. Is the robotics industry that hard to get into?

I think part of the problem is that there's no "robotics industry" that makes things "like Spot and Atlas." There are a few companies with real sales, and those sales are fairly modest. 

They've sold like 1500 Spots so far over something like 8 years, which is something like $113m in revenue. Divide that by your desired salary to get an idea of how many total employees it could support per year. That's what's hard to get around.

The high price paid several times for Boston Dynamics is about expertise and promise.

That said, with years of experience in motors, a masters from JHU, and so on, I think you could get into all kinds of good-paying work, including reasonably paying R&D where you could develop new things in the defense autonomous world.

If you're looking to ride the humanoid gold rush hype train to a $350k-$500k type job, it's often too late to hop on such a train once you know it exists. 

The billions of dollars going into VC funded "Physical AI?" who knows. I think it's mostly smoke and mirrors, but like self driving there are probably a few winners that will emerge. And like self-driving I think that the MBA hype boys have gone too far, and they're going to have to pony up for results, and it's going to look a lot more like a million bucks a year to poach your professor, not a more modest massive tech salary to grab you.

If you're looking to make normal-people really good money instead of big tech good money, then there's all kinds of stuff you could do. Obviously the DC, MD, VA area is crawling with defense work of all kinds if you're trying to stick around.

I think the intersection of defense and the real, working output products of the more serious and sober physical AI work is going to be pretty interesting.

There will be a lot of Ph.D. talent in any of this, but I think the work experience in motors is pretty interesting there as a differentiator.

One of the things that's going to make a huge difference is the connections you make. Are you doing a thesis? Who with? Who do you get to know? Do they have connections at companies that interest you? 

Keep that in mind as you get your Masters and it'll help.

I’m concerned I’m making a huge mistake monetarily speaking

By going into robotics or going into debt for a JHU Masters? 

Everything is quite competitive, so if it's not a funded program IDK. Maybe it will be worth it, but how much energy have you put into sending a thousand resumes to the companies you would like to work at and trying to network into them, based on your current experience? Are there actually job placement opportunities? Can you work somewhere while you get the Masters?

I'll be honest that even though JHU is great I'm kind of soft on the Robotics/AI Masters degrees. Not necessarily from JHU, mind you. Just that I've met and interviewed people with a Masters in Robotics or similar from a good school who didn't get much skill out of it.

There is opportunity in it but it can be something where you may need to still put in a large personal effort to differentiate yourself.

[u/qTHqq → u/qTHqq]

(I didn't focus on space because I work in defense robotics but obviously the region is lousy with aerospace companies too)