News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by aborsy on Sunday August 06, 2023 @10:25AM (#37022300)
I hear Qualcomm also doesn’t pay its engineers well. I wonder if that’s true.
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by hashtag-til on Sunday August 06, 2023 @10:44AM (#37022497)
Yes it is. I have quite a few friends working for them in the UK. Also quite a toxic office environment.
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by lnsru on Sunday August 06, 2023 @11:18AM (#37022889)
Salary 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.
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by FirmwareBurner on Sunday August 06, 2023 @11:26AM (#37022966)
> 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.

Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by aborsy on Sunday August 06, 2023 @11:34AM (#37023041)
Can you mention examples of toxic practices to better see the situation?
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by FirmwareBurner on Sunday August 06, 2023 @11:39AM (#37023102)
Heavily depends on manager/team/business unit, but the main issue is usually insane workload and insane deadlines on projects that are already alte 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.

Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by lnsru on Sunday August 06, 2023 @03:17PM (#37025530)
There 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.

Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by FirmwareBurner on Sunday August 06, 2023 @03:35PM (#37025727)
>Some colleagues will happily backstab you not sharing information about their tools

Oh yeah, that sounds familiar.

Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by RicoElectrico on Sunday August 06, 2023 @11:58AM (#37023274)
Any insider knowledge of other chip companies culture for a someone laid off SNPS, please?
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by FirmwareBurner on Sunday August 06, 2023 @02:28PM (#37025063)
No idea what's SNPS and how to help you with that.
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by RicoElectrico on Sunday August 06, 2023 @03:48PM (#37025854)
Ah, the stock ticker for Synopsys.
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by FirmwareBurner on Sunday August 06, 2023 @04:52PM (#37026606)
Sorry can't speak for that. I'm mostly familiar with the semi companies in central Europe. Don't know anyone working at Synopsys.
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by brucehoult on Friday August 11, 2023 @03:14AM (#37085981)
I 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.

Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by hashtag-til on Sunday August 06, 2023 @01:15PM (#37024255)
I 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
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by FirmwareBurner on Sunday August 06, 2023 @02:27PM (#37025050)
In which country/division?
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by hashtag-til on Sunday August 06, 2023 @03:59PM (#37025985)
Toulouse
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by FirmwareBurner on Sunday August 06, 2023 @04:41PM (#37026450)
Thanks. As with any big corporation it really depends on the location, business unit and local management.
Re:Qualcomm – one of Arm’s biggest customers – starts a RISC... by RF_Savage on Monday August 07, 2023 @01:20AM (#37030443)
NXP 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.