4 ms·

Everything I hear about semiconductor technology sounds like you need two PhDs minimum and then you have to work in horrible environments with horrible manageme

Everything I hear about semiconductor technology sounds like you need two PhDs minimum and then you have to work in horrible environments with horrible management (either personally or just due to stressful deadlines). Like this kind of comment seems par for the course (though not the PhD bit, that's more for the "science" end of things): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/kdzs4t/any_advice_on_working_in_the_semiconductor/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/kdzs4t/any_ad...

HPsquared 3y ago
I think prestige is a big factor (and kind of a trap): people want to work in a prestigious field regardless of lower salary, worse working conditions etc. That's why there is so much competition. Kind of like how academic positions are so competitive despite low pay. EDIT: Also an oversupply of graduates who feel they need to work in their fields of study. Actually I think "graduate oversupply" is the main issue. Feels like such a waste to work elsewhere if you've dedicated years to studying something, it's a major sunk cost.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Maybe it's less common today, but I would say the overwhelming majority of people I went to undergrad with ended up doing things that were only tangentially related (or not related at all) to what their degree was in.
  - adhesive_wombat 3y ago
    Yep, 50% of graduates from my course went into finance, after spending 4 years learning about electrons. Joke's on me, they probably started at more than what I make now.
    - thebigwinning 3y ago
      It sounds like you went to an ivy league?
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        Not OP but not necessarily. I have a similar percentage of Physics+Applied Math major friends who attended Cal and UCLA who ended up in Consulting and/or Financial Engineering.
        thebigwinning 3y ago
        That makes sense.
        ghaff 3y ago
        A lot of the sciences aren't really terminal degrees for people who want to actually pursue the subject of their major as a profession explicitly. So if you don't want to go on and get a physics PhD--which may not be a great career trajectory anyway--going into something that interests you and pays generally smart people who aren't scared of numbers well isn't the worst place to go. (And you're probably actually better off with that physics degree than you would have been with an undergrad business degree.)
        alephnerd 3y ago
        Agreed! I am one of those disaffected STEM grads btw - T10 STEM program grad -> Engineering internships -> Policy Stint -> BSchool -> MBB -> Product Management The business portion is easy to teach, and hiring for Finance+IB+VC+Consulting+PM roles is increasingly oriented only at STEM grads and BSchool grads from top programs (eg. BSBAs @ Haas, Wharton, Anderson, Ross, Stern)
        ghaff 3y ago
        I'm pretty similar--engineering undergrad/masters -> worked as an engineer in oil business for a few years -> MBA -> product management -> various analyst/marketing roles that followed from that fairly naturally. To add to that, given when I went to school and the fact that I wasn't a CS major, I didn't touch a computer in undergrad. (Not literally true--I took a FORTRAN course which I didn't use until much later.) Never touched a PC until I was working and that was initially an Apple II we ran a couple of analysis programs on. But... like many of my classmates we ended up in the computer industry anyway. >increasingly oriented only at STEM grads and BSchool grads from top programs I assume the idea is that they have not only already been filtered by the schools, but they're presumably not dummies if they got the program with flying colors, we can do a sanity check that we can put them in front of clients, and teach them what they need to know.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  This is the most believable explanation. There's probably less than 500 people in the entire world that are making actual design decisions for the most advanced nodes. So the status benefits would be higher then practically anyone in SV outside the C-suite and a few well known personalities.

HPsquared 3y ago

I think prestige is a big factor (and kind of a trap): people want to work in a prestigious field regardless of lower salary, worse working conditions etc. That's why there is so much competition. Kind of like how academic positions are so competitive despite low pay. EDIT: Also an oversupply of graduates who feel they need to work in their fields of study. Actually I think "graduate oversupply" is the main issue. Feels like such a waste to work elsewhere if you've dedicated years to studying something, it's a major sunk cost.

ghaff 3y ago
Maybe it's less common today, but I would say the overwhelming majority of people I went to undergrad with ended up doing things that were only tangentially related (or not related at all) to what their degree was in.
- adhesive_wombat 3y ago
  Yep, 50% of graduates from my course went into finance, after spending 4 years learning about electrons. Joke's on me, they probably started at more than what I make now.
  - thebigwinning 3y ago
    It sounds like you went to an ivy league?
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      Not OP but not necessarily. I have a similar percentage of Physics+Applied Math major friends who attended Cal and UCLA who ended up in Consulting and/or Financial Engineering.
      - thebigwinning 3y ago
        That makes sense.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        A lot of the sciences aren't really terminal degrees for people who want to actually pursue the subject of their major as a profession explicitly. So if you don't want to go on and get a physics PhD--which may not be a great career trajectory anyway--going into something that interests you and pays generally smart people who aren't scared of numbers well isn't the worst place to go. (And you're probably actually better off with that physics degree than you would have been with an undergrad business degree.)
        alephnerd 3y ago
        Agreed! I am one of those disaffected STEM grads btw - T10 STEM program grad -> Engineering internships -> Policy Stint -> BSchool -> MBB -> Product Management The business portion is easy to teach, and hiring for Finance+IB+VC+Consulting+PM roles is increasingly oriented only at STEM grads and BSchool grads from top programs (eg. BSBAs @ Haas, Wharton, Anderson, Ross, Stern)
        ghaff 3y ago
        I'm pretty similar--engineering undergrad/masters -> worked as an engineer in oil business for a few years -> MBA -> product management -> various analyst/marketing roles that followed from that fairly naturally. To add to that, given when I went to school and the fact that I wasn't a CS major, I didn't touch a computer in undergrad. (Not literally true--I took a FORTRAN course which I didn't use until much later.) Never touched a PC until I was working and that was initially an Apple II we ran a couple of analysis programs on. But... like many of my classmates we ended up in the computer industry anyway. >increasingly oriented only at STEM grads and BSchool grads from top programs I assume the idea is that they have not only already been filtered by the schools, but they're presumably not dummies if they got the program with flying colors, we can do a sanity check that we can put them in front of clients, and teach them what they need to know.
MichaelZuo 3y ago
This is the most believable explanation. There's probably less than 500 people in the entire world that are making actual design decisions for the most advanced nodes. So the status benefits would be higher then practically anyone in SV outside the C-suite and a few well known personalities.