What happened to electronics consulting?

Just before summer 2025, I realized that most my friends that were consulting in electronics had taken up fulltime positions. At the same time I had gone from 15 years of knowing what to do the next 6 months - to having absolutely no projects. What happened?

Ever since I quit Netron in 2007 (the firm I started in 1996), I've had a steady flow of consulting gigs. The first years after Netron, I focused on realtime 3D and then slid over to CMS solutions and web. Over time, I got bored of the repetition from this and in 2012, I officially stopped doing Flash and web, to only electronics design and embedded systems. The transistion from software to hardware was partially triggered from seeing Flash fading away as well as working on a couple inspiring hardware projects.

The transition was of course gradual and just as late as two weeks ago, I helped an old customer move their website to a new host. I keep supporting my customers despite web not being something I currently do. Ever since I switched to electronics I've had a steady flow of projects and I was typically booked 3-6 months in advance.

The sudden slump

In December 2024 I noticed that there was very little happening in the form of new projects. By March 2025, I had finished all my ongoing client projects. Initially it was great to have some time for personal projects and develping new products, but with absolutely no new jobs I started to get worried. At Bitraf, we've always had a good community of freelance electronics developers, but one by one people started getting fulltime positions. Also outside of my hackerspace, I saw the same trend.

A couple months later I got tired of not having a plan, so I contacted my largest customer Roest Coffee and asked if they would hire me? They were typically taking up 30% of my capacity in any given year, so it wouldn't be that much of a change. They “would love to” they said, so since August 2025, I've been an employee. They wanted me to join full-time, but I stuck to a 50% position so I can still do other work. I really love it at Roest! They're such nice people and it's been great to take on more responsibility. The firm is expanding and last month I got my first colleague working 100% on electronics. So I found a solution that would still let me do varied work, but what happened?

What caused it?

When the interest rate goes up, firms are less reluctant to invest and start large RnD projects. If all jobs are going to change due to AI - why should you bet big? And in a world where an American president is so easily manipulated that he starts a war instead of stopping them (like he promised) - what bets are really safe? Next month, all your sales to the US market could disappear due to unhinged tariffs that the consumers are not willing to pay for. Not to mention the active war in Europe where the brave Ukraine are standing up to and slowly beating the much larger Russia. There sure are enough elements that each could cause caution and neither of them can be controlled by the average person.

I think the answer is a mix of these. In uncertain times, firms will cut back on things they have control over. World finances are a mess currently and increasing interest is at the core of it. The US technically cannot go bankrupt, but it will very swiftly stop being the worlds reserve if they don't start handling their debt soon. Whatever happens, US rates will affect rates all over the world.

AI can be really weird, but it's getting more and more useful. I use AI a lot and not just for code. It's become a really good discovery tool and I can ask it questions instead of disturbing colleagues that are deep into code when I have a hardware problem. While obviously sort of click-bait, it can to some degree write decent software from scratch and some good looking but terrible to play games. This will obviously change a lot and like everyon else, I'm learning the new landscape like everyone else.

A couple observations about AI

When AI starts recommending you, it can be really good for business. Maketronics got many sales of Radsense for about half a year. Then the algorithm changed and I'm now only getting “organic sales” - to the degree that this even exists anymore? AI will happily devour anything you put out there, but it will also take over any business publishing information online. Given how many barebones MCU designs I have published on my Github, I'm quite “visible” to AI.

For a period, various AI (OpenAI & Gemini) recommended those in need of a custom design to contact me. I responded to them all, but these "leads" would never become clients. This was private persons with very limited skills and funds. They would be surprised that developing a custom board cost more than a game on Steam and they could not understand why I did not think their idea was so brilliant that I should spend my (very limited) spare time making their device. Now AI will do that instead. AI is regularly using (or maybe stealing) my openly available and verified designs. I've heard from two friends that AI references my designs when making new ones. Now these non-clients can indeed get their board at the cost of just some tokens…

It really is interesting how AI will eat itself. Google used to make tons of money from ads and results. Traffic from Google to this blog is now only 1% of what it was 5 years ago. That means that Google's AI answers that use content from my blog are so good that only 1% bothers to verify the source. And if neither of those click an Google ad, it is bound to change Google itself severely. It really doesn't mattter much to me. This blog is just my personal collection of notes and it has been so since 2005. Since I never monetized it, I have nothing to loose. This does however not apply to everyone, so there will be a bloodbath in journalism and commercial blogging in the future.

What made clients come back?

As mentioned, the slump now seems to be over on my part. I now have multiple fun jobs lined up for the next 3-4 months. Some are for customers I've had for a while. Other projects are for startups & private persons just starting a business where I help them make prototypes or taking it all the way to commercial products. I think that you can only afford to hold back innovation for a short period of time. At some point, you just have to start spending money to survive.

I think this has been a natural cycle. I have friends in architecture that are much more used to these. “Oh. It's your first time letting laid off? I've been laid off multiple times - every time there has been a downturn” an Architect friend said to a fresh Architect that just had lost his job. Architecture is cyclical and so is electronics and Embedded Systems. My son is just finishing his Masters in a related field. The firm he works for scaled down immensely for many years, but now they're growing again. I'm suspecting that this is my first meeting with long running cycles that I've not yet experienced in Electronics.