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Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

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Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#161

Honestly, based on the content of this video and the replies from the prior HN thread, it seems like folks are locked into the belief that the current manufacturing... "experience" (for lack of a better term) for the workers involved will be lifted from Asia and dropped into the US, but that doesn't actually make any sense to me. Sure, that's how the world knows how to make chips now, but given the varying laws betwe…

>As an outsider, it seems pretty clear that the rejection to the industry is more about the cultural mismatch than it is to the actual work needing to be executed. Look at Intel. It's a western company, but it famously fell behind its competitors due to offering comparatively shit pay and conditions to its staff, so the best people left. The problem is hardware company culture, not Asian company culture. Apple's M1 i…

Just to be clear, I make no value judgement about Asian cultural norms w/r/t chip manufacturing, my comment is merely meant to suggest the employment experience probably will be adjusted to fit American cultural mores, so the concern that few Americans would want these jobs isn’t entirely fair.

I am entirely unqualified to judge cultural advantages/disadvantages in the manufacturing industry.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You're talking on a form full of people who code for a living. Many who have seen their lives become substantially better. There are many problems and challenges that we still face, but that doesn't mean there are no solutions.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/16/super-rich-f...

I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me here. I'm well aware of this. I'm saying that we need to do something about it or stop complaining. If you complain and take no further steps you are advocating for the issues, not condemning them.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Toyota and Hyundai make cars in the South, so that particular lesson has been learned before

Are we lumping up modern Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese culture into one now?

Surely in terms of work culture they're more similar to each other than any of them are to North American work culture? That's the culture we're all talking about here.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#164
post #10

I worked at the Samsung A2/S2 lines in ATX with a bunch of young Americans back around 2011-2013. I would say they absolutely would. It's a very high-energy place with more going on than you can ever hope to keep track of. Even if the technology doesn't interest you, the cultural interactions should. You could have some days with Japanese, Koreans and Americans translating 3-ways in a conference room. Opportunities f…

I can't corroborate this at all.

I come from a CS background. If you leave school and enter the workforce at SAS, you will be at a disadvantage insofar as you are looking for a workplace that you hope to learn something from or one that you hope reinforces good engineering practices. The semiconductor industry, from the vantage point of an experienced systems thinker, reinforces awful engineering practices. All the things that SE folks take for granted—version control, e.g, as a discipline/tool to name one example, for regression analysis—say goodbye to any of these things, along with any expectation of competence from your colleagues.

The semiconductor industry sources heavily from the defense sector, and this has deleterious, catastrophic effects.

A close friend (from a non-CS engineering background) I know to still be at SAS. We don't talk about finances, but at around 8 years in, I estimate that he just recently (since COVID) crossed the six figure threshold. He's in a fairly senior role. Meanwhile: "What's x86?" — a direct quote from a conversation not too long ago.

He has no real professional experience outside of SAS, was not set up in an environment that rewards "extracurricular" experience, so he doesn't have any of that, either, and he's effectively stuck as a result of the "golden" handcuffs that the path at SAS has led him on.

Don't work in the semiconductor industry, folks. What you can expect to be is a monkey pressing buttons on a machine (that your supervisor—and their supervisor—doesn't understand, and nor will you; you pass butter). Make no mistake: there's an abundance of low-hanging fruit. But you won't have, as Gerry Weinberg put it, "permission" to pick it.

By all means, if your prospects/ambitions look to be something like working for the state/federal government, learning nothing over your career, and cashing mediocre checks for doing mediocre work along the way, then by all means go for it. Otherwise, it is likelier that you'll be hobbled by your time in the industry. And not for no good reason. If I'm evaluating someone and it came up that they'd done any significant time in the world of semiconductors, the net impression it'd have on me (having hash an insider's view of it) would be one worse than if they said that they'd just gotten their degree and had spent the last N years flipping burgers, cf Dan Luu.

Don't do semiconductors, folks.

PS: sorry, drunk.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#167
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nissan ran a very successful car manufacturing facility for many years in the U.K. This kind of cultural adaptation is exactly how they did it. And it turns out that Geordies were more than capable of executing “The Nissan Way”.

Another attempt, where Toyota and GM attempted to build a plant together in Fremont, California: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015

Not just an attempt.

Toyota is the one of largest employers of Americans in the auto industry today: https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/top-suppliers/car-manufac...

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another attempt, where Toyota and GM attempted to build a plant together in Fremont, California: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015

Not just an attempt. Toyota is the one of largest employers of Americans in the auto industry today: https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/top-suppliers/car-manufac...

True, they have plenty of plants, I just mean it sounds like NUMMI wasn't as successful as it could've been.

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#169
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people cannot escape. And it often surprises me how many people really don’t want to work in software.

Ironically, I much prefer hardware to software myself, but during college (while studying EE) decided that it was a deadend career path and figured out a way to be software-adjacent without having to be a developer. It worked out pretty well for me so far. The reality is that most people follow incentives, almost nobody works their actual dream job, they work the job that they have the most return for their abilities…

[deleted]

Re: Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing? [video]

#170
just looked at that youtube channel... holy cow the amount of content coming out is huge. surely its not just 1 guy doing all the research _and_ narrating? he probably has a team?

Edit: wow ok it really is 1 guy. (albeit good patreon revenue to pay for research time)

from patreon: > My name is Jon and I make videos on the Asianometry YouTube channel. I started the channel as a way to share things that I've learned about Chinese and Taiwanese history as well as vlog a little bit on my explorations of Taiwan.

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