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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]

#181

Post by dougabug »

klyrs wrote: post #130
logicchains wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Hot take, apparently: VHDL/Verilog developers should make 5x what JavaScript developers make, and not the other way around.

If it weren’t for pesky things like supply and demand.

If the pay is so low, it’s kind of curious that the supply doesn’t drop.

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

#182

Post by mensetmanusman »

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #48

Just out of high-school, I worked in a fiber-optic component assembly plant - wave-division multiplexers, optical circulators, etc. It was clean room, bunny suit, microscope work for the most part. But it was also moderate-skill, repetitive work - they'd hire large cohorts and provide all the necessary training. If you could keep up with the quotas and QC, you were in and made a decent wage and there was some room fo…

This alludes to an important point. If the semiconductor manufacturers coming to the US could take advantage of the software skill sets for automation that exist in the US, it could really help people have less repetition in their job and make it more rewarding.

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

#183

Post by mensetmanusman »

smnrchrds wrote: post #102
tristor wrote: post #63

I have worked with a lot of people that escaped from fab jobs here in the US during my career. The biggest issue I see is that manufacturing has an absolutely grueling schedule and the pay is half or less than what equivalent level software jobs pay, with worse working conditions. If you want young Americans to work these jobs, you need to pay /more/ than software jobs, because the conditions are worse. Otherwise, yo…

> pay is half or less than what equivalent level software jobs pay, with worse working conditions You can say this part about basically any job and it would be true. Tech salaries and work conditions are ridiculously good, compared to any almost other job in the US and any other country than the US. Even other STEM jobs (e.g. civil or mechanical engineering) tend to have less than half the pay and much worse benefits…

The coming cohort of university students is showing a huge influx of CS majors. I wonder how long the high pay lasts after the flood.

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

#184

Post by marginalia_nu »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #176
chris_j wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why "ran" in the past tense? The plant is still running. And why the reference to Geordies - natives of Newcastle - when the plant is in Sunderland? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motor_Manufacturing_U...

And why the reference to Geordies - natives of Newcastle - when the plant is in Sunderland? Google maps tells me those two places are only 14.3 miles away. So 1) that's pretty understandable to conflate and 2) a lot of people from Newcastle probably commute there.

My experience with the British is they frequently have stark rival differences in cultural identity based on which part of which city they live.

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

#185

Post by dougabug »

rr888 wrote: post #140
tristor wrote: post #63

I have worked with a lot of people that escaped from fab jobs here in the US during my career. The biggest issue I see is that manufacturing has an absolutely grueling schedule and the pay is half or less than what equivalent level software jobs pay, with worse working conditions. If you want young Americans to work these jobs, you need to pay /more/ than software jobs, because the conditions are worse. Otherwise, yo…

> you need to pay /more/ than software jobs The other way to do that is cut the wages of software jobs. Honestly with the glut of young developers and remote working it has started to happen already.

Good luck with that.

Executives have been trying to do that for decades (“The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer” has been heralded since the 80’s).

Even the exhalted Steve Jobs ultimately failed in his cabalistic attempt to hold down programmer pay.

It’s like a menagerie of Elmer Fudds and Yosemite Sam’s trying to bring down Bugs Bunny. Or a mangy pack of Wiley Coyotes desperate to run down the Roadrunner.

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

#186

Post by sudosysgen »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #177
cxr wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

This is like saying don’t go into medicine because you have to be a resident nurse along the way. Semiconductor fabrication is the most advanced engineering humanity has ever attempted, so you will reach your threshold eventually solving problems that might not have answers (depending on your role). Not everyone wants to do that though, and the world needs implementers and those focused on details. Pay? Could be high…

They were giving anecdotes of "fairly senior people" and talking about the incompetence expected of managers, which is not analogous to a resident nurse.

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

#187

Post by chris_j »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #176
chris_j wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why "ran" in the past tense? The plant is still running. And why the reference to Geordies - natives of Newcastle - when the plant is in Sunderland? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motor_Manufacturing_U...

And why the reference to Geordies - natives of Newcastle - when the plant is in Sunderland? Google maps tells me those two places are only 14.3 miles away. So 1) that's pretty understandable to conflate and 2) a lot of people from Newcastle probably commute there.

The reason I noticed it is that the two cities, though very close geographically, have an intense and not entirely friendly rivalry that goes back hundreds of years and continues to this day. See for example the History section of [0]. Although it's understandable that someone not familiar with the area could confuse the two places, friends from Sunderland tell that they are pretty offended when they are mistaken for Geordies. I imagine it's like accusing Bart Simpson and his friends of being from Shelbyville.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne%E2%80%93Wear_derby

EDIT: Please forgive me for bringing this up. I appreciate it's not particularly relevant to moomin's comment about the culture of the Nissan plant, which I agree with aside from my nitpicks, nor to the original video.

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

#188

Post by jason-phillips »

cxr wrote: post #164
bob1029 wrote: 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 t…

sxr's posts about Samsung Semiconductor always strike me as being particularly bitter. The thing about chronically bitter people is that they're implacable.

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

#189

Post by assttoasstmgr »

cxr wrote: post #164
bob1029 wrote: 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 t…

You're right, we should encourage the new generation to all strive to become overpaid mediocre SWEs only in it for the quick cash, because the world doesn't have enough shitty food delivery apps. Hopefully I've painted this with a broad enough brush. There is more to a fulfilling career than money.

In fact, an entire generation of SWEs who forgot the concepts of simplicity and efficiency, coding a never-ending avalanche of rubbish bloated apps is why we continually need new silicon.

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

#190

Post by dougabug »

xwdv wrote: post #100
tristor wrote: post #63

I have worked with a lot of people that escaped from fab jobs here in the US during my career. The biggest issue I see is that manufacturing has an absolutely grueling schedule and the pay is half or less than what equivalent level software jobs pay, with worse working conditions. If you want young Americans to work these jobs, you need to pay /more/ than software jobs, because the conditions are worse. Otherwise, yo…

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

I think a lot of people don’t want to work in software because of the perception or reality of the software development systems that they have been exposed to.

If the right tools were invented for them, they might take to it like ducks to water.

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