Career path suggestions for computer architecture PhD?
I would appreciate some suggestions regarding career paths from people who have been in the industry for some time.
I recently finished PhD (<6 months) with specialization in computer architecture. I am currently working in a FAANG company as SWE in distributed systems. I am a beginner in distributed systems, still have a lot to learn, but there is growth potential.
My current pay and position are satisfactory to me. However, I feel bad not being able to use the knowledge I build up in hardware/architecture, and sometimes I feel I might do better career-wise in an area where I already have some experience. So I have few questions and would love to learn more about other's experience in the industry --
1) What does the career path look like in the industry for new PhD grads? How is the growth potential/pay in an architecture role down the line?
2) Positions that allow research -- are they rare, or hard to get into?
2) Is it possible to switch to an equivalent position in hardware industry (without down-leveling) after couple of years as SWE?
I know these are questions I should have figured out before I joined somewhere. I did not even get any interview for hardware positions in NVIDIA/AMD/Intel (I was very surprised!). Being an international, I accepted the first offer I got. So, now I'm reevaluating my choices. Any advice/comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
YOE: 0.5
TC: ~250K
#nvidia #amd #intel #hardware
comments
2. Which is cheaper to scale
How's the growth potential compared to SWE at Apple?
You can go for modelling in SEG or come to Platform Architecture (the better option imo).
A short answer to your questions: it all depends on your skill/knowledge. Such as how many papers do you have? What are their impact? Hardware roles in general value experience a lot, but interviews mostly focus on the fundamentals.
When I was in Synopsys, half of the people in the team have a PhD, and all managers up to SVP have a PhD.
In your case, I would suggest you try to switch internally in Google. I can see Google HW will grow far larger in the near future and in the end threatening the existing order of the industry. It should be a good chance.