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Qualcomm is especially awful to deal with. Even as a high volume customer getting anything from them (including chip errata!) was like pulling teeth.
by civilitty 3y ago
Qualcomm is especially awful to deal with. Even as a high volume customer getting anything from them (including chip errata!) was like pulling teeth.
- aborsy 3y agoI hear Qualcomm also doesn’t pay its engineers well. I wonder if that’s true. I certainly see Qualcomm engineers frequently leave and transition to FANG.
- hashtag-til 3y agoYes it is. I have quite a few friends working for them in the UK. Also quite a toxic office environment.
- lnsru 3y agoSalary in Germany is good compared to regular automotive companies because Qualcomm has this nice stock bonus. Environment is rather toxic. The salary does not compensate that.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago> Environment is rather toxic. The salary does not compensate that. Same with NXP. Salaries and bonuses are very good(by European standards, ignore FAANG wages) but the overtime, work pressure and workplace toxicity makes that a difficult proposition if you can't stomach the ascension to the level where the REAL money starts to come in. There are indeed people at these big semi companies who can slack off and collect huge paychecks but those are the exception, as some people in the trenches are burning the candle on both ends to make the deadlines of masks reaching the fabs on time.
- aborsy 3y agoCan you mention examples of toxic practices to better see the situation?
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoHeavily depends on manager/team/business unit, but the main issue is usually insane workload and insane deadlines on projects that are already late from the moment they start because sales/marketing/execs promised $MAJOR_CUSTOMER something totally unrealistic will be delivered. The churn level is high. People are constantly fired, let go, or leave after their relocation bonus expires if they don't see any promotions after their tolls. Lots of "Game of Thrones" backstabbing going on behind the scene inside the org between managers, each trying to get the spotlight for the successes on them to get that sweet promotion, while disregarding their team and workers as disposable commodities that can always be replaced by overseas workers if they don't fall in line and deliver on the impossible deadlines. The difference in pay between junior and seniors/managers is huge, so they dangle that carrot in front of you so you put up with everything just for the chance of hopefully making it to that level one day.
- lnsru 3y agoThere are insane deadlines in semiconductor industry. We started many times already being too late to make main customer happy. I was able to catchup couple times doing 55-65 hour weeks. But it gets slowly normal practice instead of exception. Tooling is also very specific. There are gazillions of scripts written in all possible languages for all sorts of semiconductors. Some colleagues will happily backstab you not sharing information about their tools.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>Some colleagues will happily backstab you not sharing information about their tools Oh yeah, that sounds familiar.
- RicoElectrico 3y agoAny insider knowledge of other chip companies culture for a someone laid off SNPS, please?
- brucehoult 3y agoI found Samsung very good. My direct experience was as an English-speaking foreigner doing compilers and JITs etc in their Moscow R&D office mid 2014-early 2018, and visiting colleagues working on the same project in San Jose. You had to be around the office 45 hours a week (first entry to last exit each day, so that includes breaks), but they were serious about people taking weekends off, and their legally-entitled vacation (28 days, plus about 10 statutory holidays, plus about 8 days from New Year to Orthodox Christmas). If your manager asked you to work in the weekend then you got double or triple time. Unfortunately the location is undesirable at the moment.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoNo idea what's SNPS and how to help you with that.
- RicoElectrico 3y agoAh, the stock ticker for Synopsys.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoSorry can't speak for that. I'm mostly familiar with the semi companies in central Europe. Don't know anyone working at Synopsys.
- hashtag-til 3y agoI actually heard good things from friends working at NXP. Long term career incentives, good salary, training and incentives to collaborate to OSS… quite good signs to me
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoIn which country/division?
- hashtag-til 3y agoToulouse
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoThanks. As with any big corporation it really depends on the location, business unit and local management.
- RF_Savage 3y agoNXP has bought so many companies that it depends on the unit and country a lot. Likely quite a bit of difference between former Philips and former Freescale/Motorola for example.