"Is embedded development really that poorly paid?"
At least in Belgium and the Netherlands it is, yes. I've interviewed a few times for roles like that, and they were always poorly paid and very depressing looking (like one guy beaming 'this will be your workspace!', pointing to an ancient pc on the edge of a lab table with a chair with holes in it. I think since the electronics guys didn't have chairs, that was the comfy position in the company?)
They seem to get lumped in with the EE guys, for whom just like the MechEng guys there are wholly different salary expectations (probably a supply/demand thing). I guess in embedded companies, software is just a necessary annoyance.
If I may ask, how did you move from embedded to data processing? I'm interested in doing a similar move since the market for embedded is really poor in Europe and shows no signs of getting better.
Kinda late but maybe you'll read it - I went back to uni and did a masters in medical data, and I ended up doing that. The first job I took was a poorly paid government statistics job, and I went in as a junior after like 5 years programming, so it wasn't an easy decision.
Not level - that's about geography and company and other factors. But in progression.
I have never asked for or recieved a pay rise, although I have been offered retention money.
That said, it might just be the industry, colleagues talked about similar numbers.
2008 - £24k - Junior Electronic Engineer (C++/embeded)- Large engineering corp (2 years)
2010 - £20k - Software Engineer (C#/embedded)- Small engineering firm (1 year)
2011 - Studied masters
2012 - £22k - Software engineer (C++/C#/web)- Small software product house (2 years)
2014 - £28k - Software Engineer (C++/embedded) - large aerospace company (6 months)
2015 - £25k - Freelancing - Android apps
2016 - £30k - Software Engineer - Data proccessing
2017 - £52k - Data Architect - Data proccessing