Coinciding with the recruitment season of gold, silver and fourth, the shortage of chip talents has attracted social attention again.
Reflected in salary, according to Zhaopin's recruitment data, chip engineer positions ranked first in high-paying occupations four weeks after the Spring Festival, and the average recruitment salary reached 28,422 yuan / month in the fourth week after the holiday.
Therefore, Master Xin invited Grace, a senior chip headhunter of KT Talent Company, who has 14 years of HR for listed chip companies and eight years of chip headhunting experience, to share her recent observations and thoughts on the semiconductor talent market.
01
Observations on the chip talent market
Not only China, but also the world is short of chip talents
At present, I have more contact with chip design talents. Affected by the general environment, the chip industry has begun to heat up in 2021.
"Chip practitioners double their salaries after jumping jobs, and their annual income is millions" will also be more intensive than in previous years, but 2022 is a turning point, and now the heat of the market has fallen back to a relatively flat and stable state.
This is not to say that the gap between supply and demand has been alleviated, no matter which chip position is still short of people, but after a round of personnel expansion, chip companies will pursue more cost-effective employment in 2023.
Industrial development exchange meeting organized by KT talents
How short is chip talent? For example, for some high-level positions in core companies, headhunters may not be able to find several suitable candidates in China or even in Asia.
For example, now that the international chip giants are laying off employees, those employees who have been laid off can get offers from seven or eight companies when they turn around, and if they are a little more active in submitting resumes, there will be more offers.
In fact, this shortage is not a recent occurrence, dating back to around 2006. Around 2006, capital from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan began to enter the market, and foreign chip giants also successively laid out R&D centers in China.
Some self-founded chip companies in China have also moved towards large-scale development, and with the start of the domestic chip industry, the gap in talent demand has been revealed.
However, at that time, the attention of chip talents was not as high as in recent years, and everyone's focus was mostly on the Internet, real estate and other industries. Today, the heat of other industries has faded, leaving the chip industry in the spotlight all of a sudden.
Source: Zhaopin
Not only China, but also the world is short of chip talents. Otherwise, the United States would not have spent $52.7 billion on the CHIP and Science Act. On the other hand, this is an era of anti-globalization, and everyone is looking for ways to retain locally cultivated talent.
As far as the enterprise customers we have contacted are concerned, there are still many American chip talents returning to China to start businesses in 2021. However, with geopolitical escalation and restrictions on new U.S. export control rules, the number of such people has become relatively small recently.
In general, the most prominent contradiction in the chip talent market is still short supply. Other new changes are:
The demand for young engineers has plateaued, but the demand for senior chip engineers or architects who have worked for seven or eight years or more is on the rise.
02
Observations of the chip practitioner population
Relatively rational and less willing to take risks
At present, the absolute number and percentage of female engineers in the chip industry is very low, but in the process of contacting them, I think they are equally good, and they have strong logic and engineering skills.
In addition, the general temperament characteristics of chip engineers are pragmatic, like to speak with data, facts, like to do things that can be implemented and verified, and do not like to talk about empty concepts.
The high salary offered by the chip company is certainly attractive to them, and it is also the primary factor they consider when choosing a career. But chip engineers are a relatively rational crowd and not very willing to take risks.
So, in addition to compensation, they also measure a lot of factors, such as what about the track the company chooses? How big is the company's team? Has the company had any previous successful product cases? Is the product competitive?
And think about whether this technology helps improve personal capabilities? Can platforms help individuals see a wider horizon and see a bigger world? Most of the chip engineers I approached, they think about a job from this perspective.
In fact, for a long time in the past, the salaries of chip industry practitioners were not high, which also led to the loss of talents in the chip industry.
Therefore, I think that in the long run, the chip industry has a positive effect on this wave of salary increases in recent years. On the one hand, let the practitioners who are willing to pay hard intellectual and physical labor for this industry to get a matching return, and help the semiconductor industry retain talent.
Source: Zhaopin
On the other hand, through the label of high salary, you can get the attention of the whole society to the semiconductor industry and attract more new forces to join.
Perhaps these newcomers who are ready to enter the industry may not be able to understand the significance of semiconductors to the country and scientific and technological progress at the moment, but as long as he enters this circle, he will be exposed to it and inspired by many predecessors.
03
Workplace advice for chip practitioners
Based on technology, cultivate systematic thinking
I don't think there's a "good time to jump jobs", and I never recommend that talents in this industry shake their career choices just because of external environmental factors.
It is hoped that they will consider more from their own development level, such as the company's product research and development status, their own engineering capabilities, etc.
For recent graduates, I would advise them to choose positions that focus on circuit design. In fact, the current chip-related engineering positions such as analog design, verification, and testing will be more popular.
Source: Photogram
As for how to take the long-term career path, it is still necessary to return to the foundation - technology, that is, you have to enrich your technology as much as possible while keeping up with the iteration of technology.
In your daily work, don't just focus on the job at hand, but learn as much as possible about the entire chip design process, and learn to look at your own work and the work of your colleagues from a larger, more systematic perspective.
And when there is spare power, we must pay more attention to the development of the entire industrial chain. These will be helpful for the individual's future career development.
Compared with other industries such as the Internet, the impact of the "age crisis" on chip engineers is relatively small.
Because work in the chip industry requires more experience, 35 years old is actually a golden age in an engineer's career.
By the age of 45, chip engineers may not be as physically strong as young people in their twenties, but after years of accumulation, their understanding of the semiconductor industry, their understanding of products, and their understanding of technology will reach the realm of pure green at this stage, which can help them better engage in system-level work.