The Backstreet Consultant
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A new embedded development market has emerged over the past 15 years, sitting between hobbyist makers and professional engineers. Fueled by Arduino, cheap boards, and maker culture, this market serves clients with modest budgets and prototype-level needs — escape room builders, artists, early-stage entrepreneurs — who never fit the profile of traditional embedded firms. These 'backstreet consultants' vary widely in skill and charge lower rates, using off-the-shelf hardware like Raspberry Pis rather than optimizing for production. For professional engineers, this segment acts as a low-pass filter: only well-funded, serious clients eventually graduate to proper development firms. It also represents a new career path for hobbyists to gain experience and bootstrap an embedded business.
