New grad- thinking about career choice

[skeptic010]

Hello all! I am a new grad and a double E major with interest in hardware design. I currently interviewing with few companies. I've offers from intel and nvidia. However, I'm very confused and not sure how to decide.

My personal interest is digital design (logic design, coding HDL etc..) and nvidia is offering me a design position. On the other side, intel is offering a verification role which is not my personal favorite (i did some verification in school and internship and didn't like it).

After doing some research online and reading reviews in glassdoor, it looks like company wise (benefit, work-life balance, paid time off etc etc) intel > nvidia. Also I read a lot about how stressful (80hrs workweek!!) it is to work with nvidia... I would love to get a design position but at the same time, I also don't want to be in a sweatshop.

Any experienced advice/suggestion to help me out ?

 

[Hugo Drax]

Your young, what type of experience do you want under your belt? Such experience will determine your future.

I would chose the Design position and make the best of those 80 hour weeks by getting experience and then you can jump ship somewhere else once you have lots of experience hours under your belt.

 

[TecHNooB]

if i were you id go with nvidia.

 

[Balt]

If you're going to be doing something at Intel that you don't even like, it's probably not going to work out well for you. You'll be 1) Building experience in something you aren't interested in (which will get you 'locked in' to that career path to some extent) and 2) Hating your job, no matter how much nicer the work environment is.

I have a job at a GREAT organization, but my particular occupation there is incredibly dull and not going to help me move anywhere else. I'm building experience and expertise in something I have absolutely zero interest in. It's not something I would recommend for anyone who has a better alternative.

Edit: I should give the disclaimer that I know nothing about EE. Perhaps moving from one area to another is more possible with that background.

 

[edro]

Verification is just testing, right? Running test routines and documenting results?
That would suck.

 

[Hugo Drax]

I would rather work 80 hours doing something I am interested in than working 40 hours doing something dull and uninteresting which I have no passion for.

 

[hans007]

Verification is just testing, right? Running test routines and documenting results?
That would suck.

when i got out of school it was post dot com, and i had no choice but to work in software testing.

i hated it. it made me want to die, and i got out of it as soon as i could.

that is how you might end up feeling.

i also once stumbled into a bar in san jose where nvidia was having an employee gathering and was talking to Jen-Hsun Huang and low level young employees who were hanging with him. he told me he bet i could beat up one of his engineers. we were all fairly buzzed or drunk. it seemed like an awesome place to work and everyone seemed to love the guy.

anyway, if it ends up sucking because of too many hours at least you'll have design experience for your next design job and you can just move on. if you work 40 hours a week at intel at something that you dont like, you wont get any experience and if you leave will have to start at the bottom again.

go work at nvidia. if you are just out of school working a bunch of hours if they really do work that much wont be that bad.