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I've bounced around a few companies, and all the smartest people I know are in the semiconductor industry. Some of them - self-proclaimed hardware engineers - w

I've bounced around a few companies, and all the smartest people I know are in the semiconductor industry. Some of them - self-proclaimed hardware engineers - would write better code than what I've seen come out of lifelong software devs. They have crazy deep, specialised knowledge on so many fields it boggles the mind. There's no real divide between startups and corporations in terms of talents from what I perceived. The industry was in general seething with talent.

drBonkers 3y ago
Isn't the pay poor in the semiconductor industry?
- erikaww 3y ago
  the very smartest may not always seek the highest paying jobs. it is at least true in sweden that the highest earners are not necessarily the smartest: https://fortune.com/2023/02/17/smartest-not-paid-most-wages-study-european-sociological-review/ https://fortune.com/2023/02/17/smartest-not-paid-most-wages-... (i think this was on the front page recently)
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    This is my experience. Brilliant devs tend not to be primarily money-oriented. They are motivated by being able to do the things they're interested in doing.
    - afjeafaj848 3y ago
      Yeah if your job is extremely boring it can drag down your overall happiness despite more money Gotta find a good balance
- Aromasin 3y ago
  It can be, but the divide isn't as pronounced as it was in the late 90s and early 00s. I know that RTL engineers tend to make more than most software engineers nowadays. My previous housemate worked in the tech recruitment industry, and he told me that the top end of the semiconductor industry tended to always pay better than the software industry, provided you excluded finance from the mix (where hardware engineers don't generally get a foot in outside of designing chips for HFT). Equally, though, the bottom of the scale was lower. My personal experience supports that conclusion. As a graduate, my starting salary was dramatically lower than my university friends who went into software, but the jump in pay between grades proved to be much more dramatic.

drBonkers 3y ago

Isn't the pay poor in the semiconductor industry?

erikaww 3y ago
the very smartest may not always seek the highest paying jobs. it is at least true in sweden that the highest earners are not necessarily the smartest: https://fortune.com/2023/02/17/smartest-not-paid-most-wages-study-european-sociological-review/ https://fortune.com/2023/02/17/smartest-not-paid-most-wages-... (i think this was on the front page recently)
- JohnFen 3y ago
  This is my experience. Brilliant devs tend not to be primarily money-oriented. They are motivated by being able to do the things they're interested in doing.
  - afjeafaj848 3y ago
    Yeah if your job is extremely boring it can drag down your overall happiness despite more money Gotta find a good balance
Aromasin 3y ago
It can be, but the divide isn't as pronounced as it was in the late 90s and early 00s. I know that RTL engineers tend to make more than most software engineers nowadays. My previous housemate worked in the tech recruitment industry, and he told me that the top end of the semiconductor industry tended to always pay better than the software industry, provided you excluded finance from the mix (where hardware engineers don't generally get a foot in outside of designing chips for HFT). Equally, though, the bottom of the scale was lower. My personal experience supports that conclusion. As a graduate, my starting salary was dramatically lower than my university friends who went into software, but the jump in pay between grades proved to be much more dramatic.