As an embedded systems guy(Hardware guy who works "on"embedded firmware), i can attest to the fact that its not going anywhere, but caveat emptor, Its glacial growth when you consider career growth and salaries. Also, the tech stack is tied to a couple of big name tooling chain vendors and chip vendors. And after writing the same old I2C/SPI driver for the nth time, you start feeling like the OP. So grass is always greener on the other side.
Isn't a majority of the industry Electrical Engineers who know how to code? You also have a lot more physical hardware constraints to work around unlike standard computers where the lowest baseline is still quite a bit for standard app dev.
Nope! Maybe the trend is that a lot of kids these days double major( in the us) and end up with some passable programming skills. Itβs still not the primary focus. Like you mentioned the focus is working with physical constraints in a cross functional environment
The company I interned at did timer and wall din switches which were pretty interesting. They were timid letting me do much programming because it was freshman -> sophomore summer so I basically tackled a counter on one of their wall outlet timers that adjusted with a knob on the front and realized the embedded world was not for me haha. It is REALLY cool to hold your code in your hands, though.