IoT industry-ready: Should I move from Arduino to ESP-IDF?
Hi everyone,
I’m preparing myself to become industry-ready for IoT/Embedded Systems and would appreciate some advice from people working in the industry.
So far, I’ve worked with ESP32 using the Arduino framework and have built projects involving sensors, MQTT, Wi-Fi, etc.
Now I’m wondering whether I should move to ESP-IDF and use PlatformIO as my development environment.
My main questions are:
- Is learning ESP-IDF important for becoming industry-ready?
- Should I stop using Arduino framework and move completely to ESP-IDF?
- Is PlatformIO worth learning, or should I stick with Espressif’s official tools?
- For someone targeting IoT/Embedded Firmware roles, what would you recommend learning next?
- Should I focus more on FreeRTOS, ESP-IDF, C, debugging, communication protocols, and Linux rather than spending too much time on frameworks?
I’m not trying to just build hobby projects—I want to develop skills that actually translate to professional IoT/embedded development.
Would really appreciate advice from experienced engineers and people who have gone through a similar transition. Thanks!