[nurspouse]

I worked at Intel, and with process/fab people for a number of years.

Everything you're seeing in the comments is true.

Compensation is not that bad. Clearly, it'll not pay SW salaries - no engineering does. But if you're a fab person, you'll work long hours, be on call often (and you will get woken up often), and eventually will own a tool that you'll be responsible for, even when not on call.

Lots of abusive and pathological behavior, as well. And they often block internal transfers so you're basically trapped.

People with other skills (e.g. SW) get out. The rest are stuck, because they have, for example, a chemistry PhD and no other company will pay more.

See this thread from a while ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30027143

[irrational]

> Clearly, it'll not pay SW salaries - no engineering does.

For some reason, I assumed that in order to be a chip designer you had to be as good at programming as a developer. Then I became friends with two intel chip designers/engineers and was surprised that neither knew much of anything about programming, despite both having multiple PhDs in their fields. That's when I began realizing that engineering and programming are 2 entirely different fields that have little overlap.

[greggman3]

Not the same thing but ... In my experience, most browser developers (who write C++) don't know web development. In fact most of them disdane it, or at least that's how it feels. I find it kind of sad though I also understand it as I had the same attitude for the first 2~3 of years.

[theflyinghorse]

That is so odd. You're telling us the people who make these tools don't use their own tools, moreover they have disdain for the users of the tools they make?

[greggman3]

I didn't mean to imply they disdain the users, only the Web Platform itself and or specifically JavaScript.

[pineconewarrior]

Not op, but I think it's more a case like this:

Folks who work on Chromium think little of those who wrangle wordpress themes

[FPGAhacker]

In my experience, programming is something you can get pretty far learning on your own. In grade school. I’m not talking about red-black trees or computer sciencey things, but you can definitely get started making games of varying complexity when you are 10 years old or younger.

Things you can build and see and have immediate feedback.

That just doesn’t happen with chip design. Not that it can’t, and I’m sure there are examples (Woz’s paper and pencil circuit design come to mind) but it’s far from common, compared to coding.

I remember in 5th grade being asked to help another student write a choose-your-own-adventure style game in basic on an apple //e back in the “one per classroom if you are lucky” days.

I figured I was going to be a programmer as a profession but college came around and it was a coin toss for me between computer engineering and computer science. At the time, engineers made more money so I went with that. Doubled as an EE/CE. I was ok at the typical EE stuff, better at the little bit of programming we were exposed to (in pascal). I did very well in semiconductor physics, but I didn’t really get sucked into it. Got to a digital design class, and that hit the spot for me. I didn’t like plugging wires in on breadboards because it was entirely too frustrating trying to figure out which wire you got wrong, plus I’m colorblind and the shades of red and green insulation on wires are perfectly impossible for me to tell apart except under very very bright light. But I loved designing the synchronous digital logic.

It’s just not something you are super likely to randomly pick up on your own at an early age. And to be honest, even if I had been exposed to digital design back in grade school, I doubt it would have resonated. I could easily understand things like “GOTO 10.” Understanding clocked logic, or binary arithmetic probably wasn’t within my reach back then.

Nearly all of the EEs in my class had never programmed anything before the 2 classes in our curriculum. All the people that knew how to program went into CS (except for a few like me). So the few logic designers that come out of an EE program don’t seem very likely to be good at programming. Just different interests.

[rjsw]

Not chip design, but I did more electronics than programming as a teenager. Computers were expensive but individual electronic components were not and my grandfather taught me how to etch PCBs and build radios, learned digital stuff using TTL on breadboards.

[Taniwha]

It does kind of depend - I've made a career of being both: being the log designer that understands software (and makes sure the registers make sense etc) and/or the software guy that understands the c hips (and can read the verilog and find the bug) etc etc

Both require deep domain knowledge that doesn't always overlap - but being able to do both makes you more valuable

[frozenport]

The discussion isn't about chip designers. It's about the guys that print what was designed.

[fnordpiglet]

Most EE’s program almost exclusively

[smaddox]

I agree with all of this, unfortunately. I worked for Intel for two years after graduating with a PhD in EE. I learned a lot from the experience, but I can't recommend it. I work in software, now. The PhD was great, though. I loved doing semiconductor research. But make sure you work with a professor who is very good at fund raising.

[whacim]

There are also some indications that Washington is increasingly viewing semiconductors as a national security issue. There could be a shift in federal funding that could make the industry more attractive to talent again.

[nurspouse]

The industry doesn't have a talent shortage, which explains the working conditions. There will always be grad students who think "Cool! I get to do research involving quantum mechanics!"

Trust me, I've tried to talk them out of it and never succeeded.

[oceanghost]

This tracks for me.

I worked for a supplier for AMAT/Intel/Samsung etc. and was basically on-call 24/7. I had to carry two laptops with me at all times (my personal one and a work one).

I didn't care because I was young, and well compensated, but they decided that they'd cut my pay by a third by converting me to a salaried employee. The unpaid overtime (previously paid as a contractor) lost its luster quickly. Once I realized I was subsidizing bad management because I was filling the gaps left by often intentional shortcuts taken-- for free, I bailed. That took... two months I think.