Anyone work at Intel?

[gophins72]

Almost getting this as an intern FTW!

which field, financial services?

 

[georgec84]

Bump

I have an offer for a process engineer position. I'm torn between taking the job or risking the market and staying a little longer for the Ph.D. Everything I've read and discussed with people suggests Intel is a very difficult environment.

I am a hard worker but more of a 40 hour/week kind of guy. Long hours and 24/7 on-call availability just don't seem like my kind of fit. My reason for going to grad school has been to teach at a college/university without too many research demands. Going to Intel and being a 24/7 process engineer just seems like moving in the OPPOSITE direction of the stress curve. Thoughts?

 

[endervalentine]

endervalentine can you explain the difference?

sorry for the late reply, yes the process and module folks have a pager/cell on them and they're required to be on call at certain times. This doesn't happen all the time, mostly when first silicon is coming to your module or when a priority lot is due to hit your area. The thing is, if you're good, you do all your homework, properly design your experiments ahead to try and flush out all the errors then when the silicon comes you're not called. Keep in mine, when they call you it's not because some forgot a step in the process or someone did something stupid, it's some good engineering problem. The way I see is, sometimes that's when the fun comes in, it's a engineering problem that you have to solve and all eyes are on you. Imagine the very first 22nm tri-gate hits inline etest and the analytical data shows the Vt of all high voltage transistors are 20% higher, but the nominal and voltate xtors are trending on target and all tool indicators are inline. What do you do? I'm grossly generalizing here but you get the point. Actually, if first silicon were to come to my station at 3am in the morning, I would be eager to be in the fab to see what the data looks like.

One the flip-side in design, you don't get the pager or whatever. But it's the same thing, if you're block/circuit is behind the tape-in schedule or worse gating tape-in, you bet your boss would be on you to get things done. As you get closer to tape-in, I'm sure you'll be doing 50-60hr/ww before. But I assume this is pretty normal w/ any co.

It's like any job, you're responsible for the work you deliver, if you put your name on it and say it's done, then it better be done if not people are calling you. Intel is not different. I do understand where some of the complaints are coming from though, if you just started, you prob. will get bugged w/ simpler problems and it does become annoying but if you're good, the problems you will be getting are more interesting/challenging, etc.

btw, intel santa clara is having a recruiting open house on 5/19 4pm-8pm, space is limited, they will need to pre-approve folks before sending out invites. if you're interested, send me your resume and I can try my best to get you in. here's the link with more info:
http://www.intel.com/jobs/careers/santaclara/

 

[darkxshade]

They pay in binary so you'll get $1 or $0, either way, not worth it

 

[mynoriap]

hello endervalentine,

just curious if intel hires phds directly into staff engineer grade? i ask this because, between masters and phd beginning i worked for 4 years and now researching in the same field. also, interned at intel for about 6 months during my phd. where does all this place me in the intel-defition?

any inputs greatly appreciated, as I am about to graduate and touching base with the industry.

FYI - I havent started interviewing with intel yet.

phd folks gets hired into grade 7, MS are hired into grade 6, usually after 2-3 years you'll make it to grade 7.

btw, if there are any recent grads (circuits/eecs) who are interested in working with intel in the bay area (even after reading what Rumpltzer said) PM me, we're hiring a good amt. of people right now.

what Rumpltzer said is true for most process/product engineers or folks that deal with the fab for circuits it's different but still has it's pros and cons.

they have better perks these days, free soda/coffee, free fruits, a pretty stocked snack cabinets that ranges from cliff bars to starbucks cappuccino to m&ms to chips to all types of nuts, etc. and they often give out movie tickets, tickets to local events such as tennis, opera, etc.

whether you love or hate intel really depends on the group you're in as well as the product you're working on.

 

[ThinClient]

Bump

I have an offer for a process engineer position. I'm torn between taking the job or risking the market and staying a little longer for the Ph.D. Everything I've read and discussed with people suggests Intel is a very difficult environment.

I am a hard worker but more of a 40 hour/week kind of guy. Long hours and 24/7 on-call availability just don't seem like my kind of fit. My reason for going to grad school has been to teach at a college/university without too many research demands. Going to Intel and being a 24/7 process engineer just seems like moving in the OPPOSITE direction of the stress curve. Thoughts?

Amount of stress is directly proportional to size of paycheck at Intel.

Additionally, remember, Intel hires like mad and then lays off a shitload of people. Intel is a revolving door and they treat their employees like nothing more than a consumable commodity.