H/W development engineer sounds like a superset name for many jobs.

I don't think there are well adopted standards for job titles. To me, the above title appears missing any software/firmware reference. To design good microcontroller digital circuitry, I think you have to be a good programmer too. Still, the phrases are chosen by what is termed here as human resource managers are they are generally a clueless bunch of people.

When it comes to reading job advertisements, you usually have to read a set of titles and read about their descriptions to see which best describe your interests. If you are looking for the proper phrase to include in your resume, scanning the job advertisements is a reasonable way to select a description.

When in doubt on a resume, use a superset name like Hardware/Software Development Engineer or ... Design Engineer. Strategically, this doesn't exclude you from anything that the recruiter may be thinking of hiring you to do. Its better to listen and turn down offers than to be too specific in a resume.

You can describe your preference for embedded microcontroller circuitry design and programming in the narrative section of the resume.

Here are my first four job titles starting at different companies doing mostly the same sort of work, circa 1980s:

1). Digital Design Engineer (preference)
2). Hardware Design Engineer
3). Systems Engineer
4). Software Engineer

My position was that I didn't care what they called me as long as they pay me what I asked.

At Tandy I was called a Software Engineer and considered that somewhat insulting since I was doing digital design and embedded programming. However I made about twice what they paid most their other engineers. Some of them had long empressive titles that they had foolishly accepted in leau of salary.

One guy I worked with there had the puffy title, Senior Project Engineer for Electronic Designs and was in the office next to mine. When our manager left the company and tried to hire me away, he said that he had just fought long and hard to give that guy a raise to a figure that was still less than half my salary.

Tandy Electronics Design was a very strange company.

aka J