"How much can I add to my salary?" Less than 30% is free to talk about, 50% depends on the company's financing to the first few rounds, if it doubles, it can be considered. ”
Recently, Xiao Yun (pseudonym) carefully tested the candidate's salary for job hopping, although he was mentally prepared, he was still "terried" by the "Wang Ba" atmosphere on the other end of the phone. "When they are recommended for new job opportunities, if the salary increase is less than 30%, they are embarrassed to talk about it." She said helplessly to the reporter of nanduwan finance agency.
Xiao Yun is a senior headhunter in the semiconductor industry in Shenzhen. In the past one or two years, the demand for chip talent positions received by her headhunting company has increased by at least 6 times, but before she can rejoice, she has fallen into distress.
Due to the large gap in chip talents, coupled with the rapid growth of the number of related companies, the competition for chip talents has intensified, and the cultivation of talents also needs a certain cycle, which directly pushes up the rapid rise in the salaries of chip talents. The reporter learned that for mature talents with seven or eight years of work experience, one or two million annual salaries abound, even for undergraduates with only three or five years of work experience, the annual salary may be given to more than 400,000.
Compared with a year or two ago, the salary of private chip companies has increased by 50%. The speed and increase in salaries is jaw-dropping.
Under the pressure, many chip design companies have begun to set their sights on fresh undergraduates. At the same time, major universities are also accelerating the provision of talents in the direction of chips to cool down the market.
Salaries are soaring
"You look at this, it requires more than eight years of experience, master's degree, 1 million to start, and the place of work is optional, as long as the company has an office in the local area." But it is too difficult to find, we can only tell that we can't pick up," Xiao Yun couldn't help but regret while browsing the job information in the database.
On some social platforms, it can also be seen that in just a few years, the salaries of chip practitioners can be said to have climbed at a rocket speed. In October 2020, some netizens said that after graduating from graduate school, he went to a chip factory, and his salary was only 14K when he left, but then he stayed in a chip company for two years, that is, his salary was 30K*16 when he posted. But by the time the article was updated a year later, he had changed companies with an annual salary of nearly 700,000, a concession to get stocks.
Even for fresh graduates with no formal work experience, the salary can be amazing. After searching the recruitment platform, the reporter of Nanduwan Finance Agency found that in first-tier cities, the highest undergraduate students in the direction of chip design can get 30,000 monthly salaries, and it is 15 salaries, and the less ones are 123,000. In some second-tier cities, this figure has also been comparable to that of first-tier cities.
Of course, fresh master's degree students have higher annual salaries. "Before 2018, fresh master's students in the direction of integrated circuits or microelectronics in key domestic universities could get 30w, which is good, but now it is basically 50w." Fresh doctoral students are higher, some may not have graduated yet, as long as the resume is hung out, it will be held by the market," Xiao Yun sighed.
At the beginning of this year, talent solutions company Hudson released the "2022 Talent Trend Report", and Song Qian, managing director of Hudson's recruitment business in China, said in interpreting the talent trend that the salary increase in the chip industry will rank first in 2022, exceeding 50%.
Under the sharp rise in the salary of chip talents, enterprises are caught in a dilemma: find mature R & D personnel, the difficulty is needless to say, many of them are looking for someone to work together; find a shallow qualification, the asking price is high.
Of course, with the blessing of venture capital funds, some companies' salaries are not soft, and it is common for salaries to double. In the interview, some people sighed: "After pulling the venture capital, the money is the number, how much can be afforded." However, there are also companies that have no choice but to find other ways to make the annual salary package more attractive, such as not giving cash, but promising to give equity, or binding it to the account.
Behind the talent gap is a surge in demand. Since the outbreak of the "lack of core" tide at the end of 2020, many fabs have begun to vigorously expand production or build new fabs to increase production capacity, and the demand for talents has soared. In recent years, the mainland has also launched a series of policies to support the development of related industries, and in 2020, it has issued a blockbuster favorable document.
On August 4, 2020, the State Council issued the Several Policies for Promoting the High-quality Development of the Integrated Circuit Industry and the Software Industry in the New Era, which aims to optimize the industrial development environment, deepen industrial international cooperation, enhance industrial innovation capabilities and development quality, and involve fiscal and tax exemptions such as enterprise income tax.
As soon as the big move came out, the excitement in the industry boiled over. Subsequently, a group of chip developers set up enterprises and began the road of independent research and development.
Financing has reached new highs
In fact, long before the state introduced a blockbuster policy, people with a keen sense of smell had already heard the wind, and the number of newly registered companies rose sharply.
After inquiring about the latest Tianyancha data, a reporter from Nanduwan Finance Agency found that there are currently more than 380,000 related enterprises in the mainland that have integrated circuits and chips in their business scope. In recent years, related enterprises are in a period of rapid growth, with 58,000 related enterprises growing in 2019, with an annual registration growth rate of 31.26%; 73,000 new in 2020, with a registration growth rate of 30.15%; and 106,000 new enterprises in 2021, with a registration growth rate of 33.49%.
The surge in the number of enterprises is followed by a fierce competition. After all, to get financing, there must be project results to show to VCs.
In the past few years, financing in the chip field has repeatedly reached new highs. According to Yiou data, as of December 31, 2021, a total of 287 financing incidents occurred in China's chip-related enterprises, an increase of 67.8% over the 171 financing events in 2020; the total financing amount in the same period was 68.058 billion yuan, an increase of 40.7% over the total financing of 48.36 billion yuan in 2020.
Under the enthusiasm of funds, the semiconductor industry has also attracted the question of "virtual fire is too strong". In an interview with the Nanduwan Finance Agency, the person in charge of a second-tier chip company sighed: "Some companies have a few people, but they can pull hundreds of millions of dollars of financing and take away the funds of the company that works honestly." ”
It is not only the funds that are separated, but also the talents. His company has been founded for more than a decade, and many of its former employees have more than ten years of service, but since last year he has also been forced to join the robbery war.
In addition to the promotion of the policy spring wind, the reporter also found in the reporter that when the chip industry began to grow strongly, it was when the development of other industries was in full swing, and a large number of talents stepped into those hot industries, and gave up the chip, which has not yet appeared in the "river".
"Four or five years ago, it was the time to nurture chip design talents, but at that time the Internet was very hot, and many chip graduates chose the Internet, because the chip and the Internet were technically interconnected, resulting in the current semiconductor companies looking for intermediate forces when they found faults, green and yellow." Xiao Yun recalled.
After witnessing the heat of the chip talent market, Zhao Ming (pseudonym), another headhunter in Guangdong, is also quite moved and intends to increase the attention to chip talents this year. "At the end of last year, when many peers posted their results, the data of the chip team was in the front, while in the past it was the Internet and finance."
Target fresh undergraduates in advance
So, how big is the gap in chip talent now? In the interview with reporters, there is no unified statement, but from the report released by third-party agencies, we may be able to glimpse one or two.
The "China Integrated Circuit Industry Talent Development Report (2020-2021 Edition)" jointly compiled by the China Electronics Information Industry Development Research Institute and the China Semiconductor Industry Association and other units shows that the mainland integrated circuit industry is in a period of layout and development, and the number of employees entering the industry has increased. In 2020, about 541,000 people were directly engaged in the integrated circuit industry in the mainland, an increase of 5.7% year-on-year. From the perspective of all links in the industrial chain, the scale of employees in the design industry, manufacturing and packaging and testing industry is 199,600, 181,200 and 160,200 respectively, "It is expected that the demand for talents in the whole industry will reach about 766,500 by 2023." ”
Under the pressure of recruitment, fresh undergraduates with no formal project experience have also become the target of competition for many enterprises. "Our company currently has about five or six hundred people, 80% of whom are research and development, but this number is still quite far from our goal. In the past, we were all just social recruits, but the gap was too big, so we had to start school recruitment this year," Li Yue (pseudonym) told the Nanduwan Finance Agency reporter.
Her company is located in a first-tier city, is a chip design company, and has not been established for a long time, especially the desire for talent.
In fact, before the formal school recruitment, their company has begun to "curve to save the country": some technical personnel directly find the school's students, small technical problems are handed over to them to solve, and graduates directly pull over, "this has also become an important part of our robbery strategy," Li Yue laughed.
Of course, even if it is a school recruitment, some companies are also trying to build their own brands among college students in advance.
In recent years, many colleges and universities have successively established "integrated circuit colleges" to lay out "integrated circuits". The development of the integrated circuit industry is changing with each passing day, and there is a lag in college textbooks. In this context, the school-enterprise joint model is quite popular, and many enterprises have begun to enter colleges and universities for industry-university-research cooperation, and even regularly do lectures, and also brush off the sense of existence among future employees.
In the interview, there is a view that under the superimposed impact of the economic environment and the epidemic, there should be new companies this year, and the industry may be calmer.
"Calm" is also Xiao Yun's current expectation, after all, watching the surge in customer demand, but can not find someone to recommend, this taste is not very good. She hopes that the hustle and bustle will recede as soon as possible and the industry will embark on a more rational development track.
Written by: Nanduwan Finance Agency reporter Wang Yufeng intern Chen Chao
![Chip talent competition "fierce"[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)