What is the future of a career in embedded systems engineering?

The field of embedded systems engineering has given me a good steady income since the 1970s, and it still does to this day.  The number of "intelligent" devices continues to multiply rapidly, and all of those devices are "embedded systems" (a device with a processor in it which is not considered a "traditional" computer).  All of those devices run on code, therefore needing software engineers skilled in the technologies of embedded systems to create that code.  As the number of different intelligent devices in the world grows, so does need for embedded engineers - it's that simple.  And since it appears that almost every technological device has an embedded processor in it, and the number and kind of those devices will only continue to increase there is most certainly a very bright future for embedded engineers.  Consider the latest tech "trend", IoT (Internet of Things) - it's all about embedded devices!!! 

A good analogy is cloud providers like AWS, GCE etc. Once upon a time, if you had to develop your application, on top of writing the application logic, you also had to configure DNS routing, load balancing, caching, data-store etc. Now that applications are getting hosted online via popular cloud service providers, most of this routine, non-creative but very-much-needed work is automatically given to you as basic platform services, leaving you with just the creative component of your unique application. This aspect of PaaS/IaaS providers is called as non-differentiated heavy lifting.

This is bound to happen in embedded systems engineering as well. As a matter of fact, its well underway with commodity hardware, off-the-shelf chips coming inbuilt with networking and routing, sensor and drones manufactured inexpensively in China/Taiwan with in-built MPLS, GPS algorithms, plug and play diagnostic routines etc, etc. You name it.

So the key is to have a unique value proposition for yourselves, beyond simply knowing to program in C/C++, experience in BIOS/PROM, SAS, PCI-e, I2C. That kind of job does exist very much in the market now, think IoT, connected cars, VR headsets or even the Pebble smart watch. It can be a niche role.