Is semiconductors where careers come to die?

Oct 2, 2018 45 Comments

Semiconductors has to be the least glamorous, lowest paying tech jobs with some of the worst WLB in the Bay Area (daily 7:00-900 am with Europe and 5:00-7:00 pm with Asia conference calls anyone?). Except for maybe Nvidia or Intel, working in this industry seems to be career limiting, which is ironic given that it's called the Silicon Valley after all. Personally I can't wait to GTFO, but it's so dang difficult. Anyone else in the same boat?

comments

Want to comment? LOG IN or SIGN UP
TOP 45 Comments
  • Google / Product
    LdJm16

    Go to company page Google Product

    LdJm16
    Unfortunately it's true. I went to school for EE and spent 10 years in semi. GTFO requires a non trivial amount of effort but doable
    Oct 2, 2018 10
    • Google / Product
      LdJm16

      Go to company page Google Product

      LdJm16
      I apologize for the delay in responding... I'm an occasional Blind user. Specifically for cloud, a good place to start picking up domain knowledge is watching YouTube recordings of sessions from GCP Next and AWS reInvent conferences; start with keynotes to get a general idea of what's happening and then go listen to all technical talks in your target area. Research everything you don't understand. Read up on system design, scalability, big data analytics and machine learning. Build a couple of simple applications using AWS/GCP/Azure stack. Start reading industry analytics/bloggers like Stratechery. Try to do a side project which is completely out of your normal area of expertise (helps with resume pickup as well). Hope this is helpful. That's how I approached this. Also also completed a couple of edx courses to gain additional depth on data engineering (somewhat important for PMs), general web development, and computer science 101 (data structures, basic algorithms).
      Nov 1, 2018
    • Intel
      BK'sBoyToy

      Go to company page Intel

      BK'sBoyToy
      Great info and input LdJm16! Thanks for coming back and responding - I'm currently thinking about moving to a SW product position from HW. Will require a lot of side study.
      Nov 1, 2018
  • Google
    TrolDTrols

    Go to company page Google

    TrolDTrols
    Not just semiconductors, any low level programming job like storage, compilers, kernel programming get no love anymore ... while app developers in companies like uber , Airbnb are millionaires.
    Oct 2, 2018 0
  • Qualcomm / Eng
    ORbW22

    Go to company page Qualcomm Eng

    PRE
    Intel
    BIO
    ASIC
    ORbW22
    Mid career hw engineer with 8-10 yoe is making like 180-200k at semiconductor companies like Intel Qualcomm (may be 25% more at Apple and nvidia)
    SW kids with less than 5 yoe banging 300k easily.
    hw industry is still going to be there but there is not growth, it sucks.
    my only question for software folks, with all the online resources like hackerrank and leetcode for everyone to pick up data structures and algorithm, is this demand for sw engr gonna sustain ?
    Oct 2, 2018 4
    • 300k+ are a (relatively) small (but highly visible) set at FANG. And most of that compensation is from stock growth that may or may not plateau.

      I have an offer at FANG did not come close to 300K. It was a standard 20% jump compared to current compensation. Base was less than my current.
      Oct 2, 2018
    • The way they calculate TC with stock growth it is like the dot com boom days. A market crash will reset them back to a base of 160-180k quickly.

      The demand in software will still far exceed hardware in the long term, if you are young get out now, don't waste your career.
      Oct 27, 2018
  • Intel
    BK'sBoyToy

    Go to company page Intel

    BK'sBoyToy
    Also being at Intel isn't a good thing now. Morale is crap. Plenty of colleagues have GTFO, I need to go soon too. Only decent HW companies in terms of pay are Apple and Nvidia, but they also work you like a dog.
    Oct 2, 2018 0
  • Intel
    fm5

    Go to company page Intel

    fm5
    Amat is one of the saddest companies I've worked for, and I've worked at 7-11
    Oct 7, 2018 4