[HN Gopher] Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor m...
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Will young Americans want to work in semiconductor manufacturing?
[video]
Author : henning
Score : 132 points
Date : 2022-09-02 00:39 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| From second hand anecdotes, I understand a lot of work involves
| handling dangerous chemicals, maybe enough to scare people away
| after a couple of years. I know one person that did exactly that,
| the risk wasn't worth it anymore.
| [deleted]
| bfung wrote:
| Very good video outlining the context, problems, and bringing
| info from social media (hn) and other news!
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I love this channel, glad to see it here. I agree with his
| sentiment after working in the semiconductor industry in the Bay
| area off and on for the last 15 years.
| [deleted]
| jhallenworld wrote:
| So here is my recommendation: provide more chairs in the
| cleanroom. Seriously, there are like no chairs in there..
| jmpman wrote:
| My nanny's sister just started working at a semiconductor plant.
| Unfortunately she's talking my nanny into joining. So, yes, if
| they pay enough.
| teddyh wrote:
| Your cue to pay your nanny more?
| jmpman wrote:
| Or move on from having a nanny.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Not all jobs are worth the same amount.
|
| Nannying is quite important but it is low skill (meaning
| supply of labor is high) and thus will probably command lower
| wages than semiconductor manufacturing.
| closetohome wrote:
| Job skill is relative. I'm sure everyone's job would be
| considered "low skill" to some people.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Who considers software engineering to be "low skill"?
| What about doctors, lawyers, etc?
|
| People can "consider" anything they want. That doesn't
| mean it's accurate.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| I don't think its low skill/high supply that's the problem
| here. The fact is a nanny is only servicing one family and
| so their entire economic input must be a fraction of that
| family's income. Same problem hair stylist faces compared
| to a software developer. You can only cut so many heads of
| hair in a single day which limits your total possible
| income to a fraction of mine because a billion people can
| buy my software. Its just the way it is and barring some
| major change in how society is structured, the way it will
| always be.
| jjk166 wrote:
| But different families have different levels of income,
| and there is a very long tail. If nannying paid better,
| it would just be a smaller fraction of families that
| could afford it. The fact is because it's a low
| skill/high supply labor pool, the equilibrium point is
| reasonably low, such that even many middle class
| households can afford nannies. For software yeah your
| cost could be borne by a billion people, but those
| billion people could instead bear the cost of a cheaper
| developer if they were available.
| Bakary wrote:
| I don't think it's so clear cut. Baumol costs disease
| already goes a long way, and developers only receive
| exponential rewards if they have significant equity. Some
| can go solo or succeed at the startup route but they are
| a minority.
|
| Furthermore, with AI becoming increasingly sophisticated,
| we might see a seachange in developer salaries with only
| the most talented and valuable devs getting massive
| increases and all the rest being made redundant. Leading
| us back to the low skill/high supply problem.
| geodel wrote:
| Very true. I see that bi-modal salary distribution is
| already happening in many places. In fact at lot of
| places even pretty good s/w skills might not matter. So
| there are run-of-the-mill Java/.net/PHP etc developer
| jobs which will get a low band salary irrespective of
| actual skill level. And then
| Reactive/Mobile/Kubernetes/Deep-learning developer jobs
| which by default are set in higher-band salary.
|
| Another thing I think in cloud with pre-packaged solution
| (not just individual pieces of sw/hw) for most common
| situations and metered billing, providers are going to
| take major chunks of IT budgets. It would be similar to
| past when hardware cost was high so developer would get
| lower portion of overall budget.
|
| In my mind the era of on-prem systems, custom solutions
| with high paying FTE jobs is coming to an end. And the
| myth _developers are kings_ is going to go away along
| with that.
|
| Yeah, 1-2 per cent of total IT workforce working for
| cloud providers will be compensated well. Remaining 95%
| will be either short term gigs or low pay FTE jobs called
| _Cloud Connectivity Developer II_ and so on.
| jmpman wrote:
| She describes her sister's job as filling a cartridge with
| wafers, and then sending it into some robotic conveyance.
| And then just sitting there. Probably about as much skill
| as navigating a car through rush hour traffic to soccer
| practice.
|
| Her sister isn't installing HF lines, or clean room
| downdraft systems. Functional equivalent of flipping
| burgers.
|
| My understanding is that for a while Intel was trying to
| only hire PhDs for running its tools, but found that the
| especially academic individuals had little interest in the
| statistical process control of wafer manufacturing. In high
| volume manufacturing, the core engineers are still chemical
| engineers with bachelors degrees.
| kbelder wrote:
| Heh. Sorry for your nanny loss, but that's awesome.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I think young americans will work wherever the money is. I see
| people everyday (both american and non) that are in software
| because that's what pays right now.
|
| You just have to talk to the nearest product owner, project
| manager, or bootcamp grad for an example.
| dougabug wrote:
| Software has structural economic advantages that are difficult
| to match in other professions (particularly ones that can scale
| up to support such a large number of practitioners).
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Speaking from experience, if you're not into the semiconductor
| engineering side, consider looking for maintenance personnel
| positions with fabs. The work is interesting, your boss will
| probably hold a PhD and be competent, and you won't be stuck
| behind a desk all day.
| abdullah2993 wrote:
| What a wonderful solution. Lets pay software engineers less so
| they are forced to work on hardware. Why not just have higher
| pays for semiconductor people since they are crucial?
| okdood64 wrote:
| > Lets pay software engineers less
|
| That was hardly the point of the video's thesis.
| trasz wrote:
| Because hardware business is based on real economy, instead of
| just pretending to be doing something useful to siphon
| investors money.
| sampo wrote:
| Well, there was Theranos. And Juicero.
| tristor wrote:
| I have worked with a lot of people that escaped from fab jobs
| here in the US during my career. The biggest issue I see is that
| manufacturing has an absolutely grueling schedule and the pay is
| half or less than what equivalent level software jobs pay, with
| worse working conditions.
|
| If you want young Americans to work these jobs, you need to pay
| /more/ than software jobs, because the conditions are worse.
| Otherwise, you only get the people who can't escape. Anyone who
| can escape eventually does.
| rr888 wrote:
| > you need to pay /more/ than software jobs
|
| The other way to do that is cut the wages of software jobs.
| Honestly with the glut of young developers and remote working
| it has started to happen already.
| dougabug wrote:
| Good luck with that.
|
| Executives have been trying to do that for decades ("The
| Decline and Fall of the American Programmer" has been
| heralded since the 80's).
|
| Even the exhalted Steve Jobs ultimately failed in his
| cabalistic attempt to hold down programmer pay.
|
| It's like a menagerie of Elmer Fudds and Yosemite Sam's
| trying to bring down Bugs Bunny. Or a pack Wiley Coyotes
| desperate to run down the Roadrunner.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| > _pay is half or less than what equivalent level software jobs
| pay, with worse working conditions_
|
| You can say this part about basically any job and it would be
| true. Tech salaries and work conditions are ridiculously good,
| compared to any almost other job in the US and any other
| country than the US. Even other STEM jobs (e.g. civil or
| mechanical engineering) tend to have less than half the pay and
| much worse benefits and work conditions compared to software.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The coming cohort of university students is showing a huge
| influx of CS majors. I wonder how long the high pay lasts
| after the flood.
| dougabug wrote:
| It's not a zero sum game. There isn't some fixed, finite
| demand for software. There's no upper bound on how much
| value can be created by skilled, imaginative software
| engineers, and a programmer can be productive with a
| relatively inexpensive set of tools (i.e., a computer and
| Internet access, which pretty much everybody has today).
|
| If software is eating the world, eventually almost all jobs
| will in some aspects be software jobs, analogous to how 98%
| of the population used to be engaged in some aspect of
| agricultural production. We should focus on providing
| people with the productivity amplifying tools which could
| sustain a high quality standard of living.
| xwdv wrote:
| _A lot_ of people cannot escape. And it often surprises me how
| many people really don't want to work in software.
| splistud wrote:
| dougabug wrote:
| I think a lot of people don't want to work in software
| because of the perception or reality of the software
| development systems that they have been exposed to.
|
| If the right tools were invented for them, they might take to
| it like ducks to water.
| snerbles wrote:
| Growing up playing with BASIC on an old DOS machine, in my
| childhood solipsism I had this notion that everyone would
| love writing code as much as I do and it would be nothing
| special.
|
| In the decades since I've come to believe that actually
| _liking_ working on software requires a certain sort
| of...personality that most people just don 't have.
| bcatanzaro wrote:
| That's exactly how I felt. As a kid, I actually planned on
| a different career in something less fun like chemistry or
| biology because I thought there's no way people would pay
| me to write software. Thankfully people informed me I was
| wrong.
| tristor wrote:
| Ironically, I much prefer hardware to software myself, but
| during college (while studying EE) decided that it was a
| deadend career path and figured out a way to be software-
| adjacent without having to be a developer. It worked out
| pretty well for me so far.
|
| The reality is that most people follow incentives, almost
| nobody works their actual dream job, they work the job that
| they have the most return for their abilities and investment.
| HW and SW jobs used to have a lot of overlap from an
| abilities perspective, but as each has become more
| specialized that overlap has eroded. A lot of people are
| choosing to go all-in on software, whether they particularly
| love it or not, because it is a far better environment to
| work in.
| kazen44 wrote:
| HW is also far more capital intensive to build compared to
| software, so usually far less companies have to resources
| to build HW based solutions.
| [deleted]
| BeetleB wrote:
| Most jobs Americans do are not in SW and pay a lot less than
| SW. Saying an industry won't thrive because the work is hard
| and the pay is less than SW is silly.
| dougabug wrote:
| Well, at least the people won't thrive if the work is hard
| and the pay is low. Some people frame this as some kind of
| character defect on the part of Americans, but to me it just
| seems like common sense to avoid hard work for low pay, if
| possible (unless the work is stupendously interesting).
| georgeburdell wrote:
| Semiconductor job skills are highly transferrable to
| software.
| titanomachy wrote:
| The video was specifically referring to high-skill
| manufacturing engineers, most of whom probably could get some
| kind of software job if they wanted to.
| EddySchauHai wrote:
| The hardest job I had paid minimum wage when I was 16 in the UK
| - 3.98 an hour. I make more money taking a crap as a software
| engineer than I made in an 8 hour day as a developer. That's
| not a joke, I did the math the other day. People work much
| harder jobs than sw for much lower wages all over the country
| and world.
| bigcat12345678 wrote:
| Wtf is this type of discussion...
|
| Cannot the business just pay a bit more...
| bmismyname wrote:
| Will there be low wages with huge bonuses for the CEOs while the
| workers have to struggle to pay rent? Young people know the
| future is not bright, and I encourage them to enjoy their lives
| while they still can.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| This world view seems like a potential death spiral. As world
| views become bleak, is encouraging people to say "fuck it" and
| maximize for enjoyment really the best move? Whatever happened
| to working hard to build a future for oneself? Yes, I
| understand there are higher powers that be and people with much
| more powers than you and I that are ruining the future but is
| the answer really to lay down and be engulfed in the pleasure-
| filled dopamine high ebbs and flows of the meta-verse?
|
| It's like the chicken and egg problem. What came first?
| Societal collapse or the willingness of its citizens to lay
| down and take it? Both cause eachother. Which variable is the
| one we can actually change?
|
| Yes, enjoy your lives but only to the extent to where you step
| away from the grind and reevaluate your priorities, take a look
| at what is important to you. Hunker down into the priorities
| that matter and remove the cruft of distractions.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Once the captain abandons ship, why should anyone else be
| manning their posts? If you do not have the power to change
| the situation, the best move is to adapt to it, and in times
| of societal collapse that means looking out for yourself.
| bmismyname wrote:
| Why get on the ship in the first place? Was I forced onto
| the ship as a slave to be sold to the highest bidder in
| America? Or am I the captain of the ship who will get to
| keep all the riches?
|
| There can only be one captain. If I'm forced onto that ship
| as a slave, I will do everything I can to break the chains
| and free my comrades. No matter what kind of riches I'm
| promised, I won't be the captain of any slave ship, that's
| for sure.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > If I'm forced onto that ship as a slave, I will do
| everything I can to break the chains and free my
| comrades.
|
| And you'll be thrown overboard and everyone else (other
| than the people who you pulled into your plan, who will
| swim with you) will just get on with the business of
| surviving. You're not braver than or morally superior to
| millions of imported slaves. The Atlantic was filled with
| slaves who didn't think that the material world applied
| to them.
| screye wrote:
| The worst thing is that enjoyment and consumerism of all
| sorts is relative. Once you get access to food, shelter and
| clothing (and healthcare) ....everything else only feels
| necessary because someone else on Instagram had it.
|
| 3 things have led to a greater dejection among the youth:
|
| 1. Rising rents and low access to shelter (basic need).
| Rising costs of Healthcare causes dejection to.
|
| 2. Continuous exposure to 'perfect' ultra-high consumerism
| lives through social media.
|
| 3. Climate change led doomerism about if the world will even
| exist in a few decades.
|
| ___________
|
| This culminates into a deep resentment towards older folk.
| Old people disproportionately own property, stress from the
| Healthcare system and contributed most to climate change in
| their hayday.....all while controlling power in the top
| levels of govt.
|
| The probable solutions are all hard to organically execute.
| Do we create counter brainwashing systems to make people live
| within their silos (ignorance is bliss)? Do we trade off
| guilt driven doomerism about climate change for 'the climate
| will be just fine' narratives ? Do we push for pro-child
| policies, so children aid in building longterm hope and long
| term plans for millennials and gen z ? Do we loosen zoning
| rules to allow for cheaper housing for the young, even if
| that means boomers assets reduce in value ? Do we regulate
| industries such as Healthcare and education to be cheaper by
| increasing access, even if that means less 'fancy' services
| and arguably lower quality doctors ?
|
| All hard questions, but those are the peaceful solition. To
| quote JFK : "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
| will make violent revolution inevitable".
| colechristensen wrote:
| >This world view seems like a potential death spiral.
|
| It's not a death spiral, it's competition.
|
| When people leave shitty jobs and vacancies can't get filled,
| businesses either improve conditions and pay or they lose to
| competitors who do.
|
| The only way you can really negotiate is being ready to say
| no and leave when you get a bad offer. People actually doing
| that make a difference.
|
| Suddenly a job has to be better than "fuck it" and people are
| making "fuck it" seem glamorous.
|
| You'll get a lot of business people whining and whinging
| about it, but only actions actually matter.
| bmismyname wrote:
| Forget the metaverse, try LSD and psilocybin. I think the
| only reason Zuck is pushing this VR nonsense is that he took
| too much and now he thinks he can put ads in your VR trip.
| butUhmErm wrote:
| I think it's the opposite; he's such a square which
| explains why his imagination is stuck on literally creating
| Snow Crash.
|
| Anyone who has tripped balls and come out OK is not so
| addicted to literalness as Zuck. They realize a multiverse
| of perspectives lives within them. It doesn't need to be
| made "real".
| bmismyname wrote:
| That's a neat way to think about it. I think a lot of the
| hype about AI or whatever is just because so many techies
| have tried these substances and realized that the brain
| is such a weird thing, and now they think they can
| emulate it, commodify it, and sell it for a monthly
| subscription fee. The truth is, we have no idea how the
| brain _actually_ works.
|
| In "The Doors of Perception", Aldous Huxley describes it
| very well: it's like these drugs remove a sensory filter
| we normally have in place which makes the world feel
| like...well...reality. When you remove that filter,
| you're suddenly flooded with the sense that there's so
| much more to the universe, but in actual fact it's all
| just in your head. It's just your brain cells doing a lot
| of communication with each other in a way that is most
| likely nonsensical.
|
| Some people come out the other side thinking they've
| found some magic, but more likely they've just
| experienced what was always there without the filter, and
| once it wears off you're the same person you were but
| perhaps with a sense of feeling like you're part of a big
| system (which we all are, called biology).
|
| From a strictly biological perspective it makes sense,
| given that most life is based on DNA and we share a lot
| of DNA with things that we are very different from. We
| share about 60% of our DNA with bananas.
| powerslacker wrote:
| If life is ultimately meaningless then why not? The world you
| are talking about where people work to better the future for
| themselves and their progeny is reliant on life having some
| kind of purpose or meaning. If the universe is the result of
| random chance and life itself is the result of accidental
| chemical processes then life doesn't have inherent meaning.
|
| Why SHOULD someone who believes the things I've mentioned do
| anything except attempt to maximize personal pleasure?
| bmismyname wrote:
| "I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't
| let anybody tell you different."
|
| - Kurt Vonnegut
| AngryData wrote:
| And what are they building toward if most people are
| consistently losing wages under inflation and the wealthy
| keep getting wealth injections from the government? Many
| people sees this only going two ways, the rich get richer and
| the poor get poorer so they will likely spend their lifetime
| just barely surviving, or there is a huge economic crash from
| the top heavy economy in which case anything they built gets
| smashed to pieces anyways.
|
| Most people these days have seen multiple large economic
| crashes and swings and have very little faith that our
| economic systems are stable or sustainable. Prospects for the
| bottom 2/3 of the population are negative, stability is
| questionable, long term sustainability isn't anywhere near
| feasible yet.
|
| You get one life, might as well enjoy it while you can. Not
| just labor your days away for the short term benefits of the
| few.
| imtringued wrote:
| It's a prisoners dilemma. Someone cheats and you can either
| not cheat and be treated like a fool while the cheater gets
| all the status and attention and calls you stupid and says
| that you deserve it or you can cheat, walk toward the cliff
| and fall off together with the cheater.
|
| From a societal standpoint we should teach our children to
| just let themselves be cheated and work anyway and shoulder
| the burden of the cheaters because even if cheaters ruin your
| life, they only ruin your life, not society as a whole, which
| only is only ruined if you cheat back.
| verisimilitudes wrote:
| There are at least two other options here:
|
| 1) Expel the cheaters (a popular choice with the Jews for
| the last millennium or so).
|
| 2) Kill the cheaters.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > Whatever happened to working hard to build a future for
| oneself?
|
| People are discovering that working hard doesn't build a
| better future for oneself, it builds a better future for CEOs
| and shareholders.
| godelski wrote:
| I think what is most insidious about this world view is that
| working on solutions to the issues appear as support for the
| viewpoint. We're all problem solvers here and we all know
| that the first thing to creating something new is recognizing
| a problem that can be solved. It can then be broken down into
| many sub problems that can either be worked on individually
| or need to be solved in tandem. But breaking down our
| problems and revealing its complexities are often not seen as
| the first steps towards solutions, but rather seen as a
| larger force that we need to overcome. It ignores the
| momentum that we see every day in our solutions: hardest at
| first, but once the ball is rolling things start to fall into
| place (often making progress, unfortunately, difficult to
| measure. Especially when you're in the thick of it). That
| frustration and setbacks can make it hard to move forward,
| but we always find a way in the end. We wouldn't be problem
| solvers if we didn't.
|
| I don't know about you all, but I'm not willing to say "fuck
| it." There's enough beauty in the world to enjoy and seek to
| preserve. We've clearly made changes in the past and made
| things better. While we stand on the shoulders of giants,
| they are in reality 3 dudes in a trench coat sitting on one
| another. Personally, I take pride in trying to build a better
| future for my (non-existent) children and generations to
| come. We're all in this together and I think a lot of us want
| to build that Sci-Fi utopia that we read about and dreamed of
| as children. We can still make that world, but not if we say
| "fuck it."
|
| The reality is that our decisions determine if we live in the
| Cyberpunk Dystopia or the Sci-Fi Star Trek-esk Utopia. Giving
| up is choosing the former and actively participating in its
| creation.
| bmismyname wrote:
| Personally I'm not saying "fuck it", but I have reached the
| point where I just won't go along with the bullshit
| anymore. I'm going to fight.
| godelski wrote:
| Sounds like you are playing the game then. Good. Fight to
| make the world better instead of selling depression.
| Depression is contagious after all.
| bmismyname wrote:
| I reject the idea that depression is the source of your
| problems. It's just a symptom. Treating depression as
| anything other than a symptom won't make you happier, at
| best you'll feel numb, but likely maintain your profound
| sense of sadness.
|
| If everyone's depressed, we shouldn't be asking "how do
| we get more SSRIs into these people?", but rather "how do
| we fix society so people aren't depressed?".
| dangus wrote:
| The person you replied to has some...interesting opinions
| about psychedelics...anyway...
|
| > As world views become bleak, is encouraging people to say
| "fuck it" and maximize for enjoyment really the best move?
|
| The answer to this question is _obviously_ yes. Why _wouldn
| 't_ anyone maximize for life enjoyment? I hardly think that's
| equivalent to saying "fuck it."
|
| Here's the thing: the video talks about the career track of
| semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan being limited. When
| we're talking careers that require education and training,
| people are going to look at the opportunity cost of choosing
| one vocation over another.
|
| Whether people want to do this work really just depends on
| how much these roles are going to pay.
|
| I also think it's incredibly realistic and mature for the
| youngest generation to acknowledge how their earning
| potential is being squandered into healthcare, housing, and
| education that all consistently grow faster than inflation.
| They are fully aware that employers make minimal investment
| in employees' education or training, prefer external hires
| for senior leadership and management rather than promoting
| from within, and purposefully optimize for their own
| employees to job hop. Every employee I know is 100% aware
| that any extra effort they put into their work isn't going to
| be rewarded with extra pay, and that promotions and pay
| raises that they can get are never as high as switching jobs.
|
| I applaud every young person who sets boundaries and refuses
| to go above and beyond for employers who don't go above and
| beyond for their employees.
| bmismyname wrote:
| You should try psychedelics, or at least read a few books
| on them. It probably won't change your life, but it'll
| definitely give you new perspectives. In my case, I think
| it made me a better person, and I find I have much better
| relationships now.
| dangus wrote:
| Is badgering people to do psychedelics in situations with
| zero contextual relevance to doing psychedelics one of
| the ways in which you've become a better person, or is
| that a remaining negative personality trait where a few
| more psychedelic sessions might cure you of the
| affliction?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > What came first? Societal collapse or the willingness of
| its citizens to lay down and take it?
|
| The previous poster's description of the problem isn't by
| force of nature. It's by other people ("huge bonuses for the
| CEOs while the workers have to struggle to pay rent").
| Perhaps the CEOs should offer some concessions to the young
| workers.
| bmismyname wrote:
| Indeed. Eventually there will be a revolution if the wealth
| concentration trend continues. I'm on the side of the
| working class forever and always, as I grew up dirt poor
| (and got exceptionally lucky because of my early interest
| in computers) and my family is still dirt poor today, so I
| have a good idea of what it's _actually_ like to starve.
| rs999gti wrote:
| > if the wealth concentration trend continues
|
| Or unsustainable housing costs
| bmismyname wrote:
| Housing is treated as an investment these days, instead
| of as housing. That's the fundamental cause of
| unaffordability, and it exacerbates the problem. It's
| easily fixed with the right policies, but at this point
| it can never be fixed (with a huge political left turn,
| maybe).
|
| Making it easier to obtain leverage doesn't make housing
| cheaper, it just makes the prices go even higher faster.
| imtringued wrote:
| It's the same with money, when money deflates it's
| treated as an investment too, not a medium of exchange.
|
| Just like housing being too expensive ruins it's ability
| to provide housing for everyone, money being too
| expensive causes a recession and unemployment.
|
| The difference however is that money can be created
| through borrowing so it doesn't go up in value but
| housing is restricted through zoning and the availability
| of land, you just can't make more of it.
| bmismyname wrote:
| You're correct, but the other thing with housing is that
| we actually have a supply glut. There are something like
| 16 million vacant homes in the US (according to numbers
| from an internet search).
|
| Why so many vacant homes? The answer (as with everything
| in economics) is that the incentives are such that it's
| better to sit on a vacant home. In other words, our
| current system incentivizes hoarding homes.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| Gee, Weird how a little realism is somehow making a downward
| mobility.
|
| The fact is that a good deal of workers are struggling to get
| by while the folks at the top get bonuses equal to more than
| a few weeks pay. Being realistic, even when hidden under a
| layer of sarcasm, is preferable lest things not change.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| And here I thought it was crushing inflation, unaffordable
| housing and stagnant wages.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Those are all real issues. That's why I used the term
| "exacerbate".
|
| Those who do the bare minimum to get by in life are only
| hurting themselves in the long run.
|
| This remains true despite a gloomy macroeconomic outlook.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > bare minimum
|
| But a lot of people aren't even doing that. They're
| choosing to pick more lucrative career paths such as
| pushing JavaScript for cat photo social networks, working
| on ways to increase engagement for users to see ads, and
| whatever other ways FAANGs previously propped up by low
| interest rates, or startups propped up by VC funding,
| make money.
|
| That work isn't necessarily easier, but it's not
| semiconductor manufacturing, or rebuilding American
| infrastructure, or being essential workers during a
| pandemic, or whatever other important but far less-paying
| work than consumer software engineering (or say, the
| financial industry).
| chitowneats wrote:
| I hear these arguments all the time.
|
| If software engineering is such a cushy, desirable,
| lucrative job, why don't more people do it?
|
| It's easy to forget the thousands of hours it takes to
| become competent in this field once you've been in it for
| a while. Most people simply do not care enough to take
| the time to learn to do it despite being fully capable.
| It ain't rocket surgery.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > If software engineering is such a cushy, desirable,
| lucrative job, why don't more people do it?
|
| Lots of people are, and try, that's why bootcamps and
| Leetcode prep have been so big for the past decade. More
| and more people are joining, but also there's a lot of
| demand so jobs are unfilled.
|
| (You're also completely failing to read when I said "that
| work isn't necessarily easier".)
|
| My point is that a lot of people gravitate towards those
| hot industries, definitely more people than those going
| to lesser-paying industries in say semiconductor
| manufacturing, which is what TFA is about. My point is
| your comment about "attitudes exacerbating downward
| mobility" have nothing to do with why people don't want
| to work in semiconductor manufacturing.
| chitowneats wrote:
| "That work isn't necessarily easier", is obviously
| implying that it _can_ be easier, or is roughly
| equivalent. Your entire comment was a clever way of
| turning the tables on software engineers. Please don 't
| insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise.
|
| > My point is your comment about "attitudes exacerbating
| downward mobility" have nothing to do with why people
| don't want to work in semiconductor manufacturing.
|
| It has everything to do with why they don't want to do
| software engineering. I can't tell you how many of my
| educated peers think it's "lame" or "selling out" to work
| in a skilled career rather than being a bartender,
| activist, starving artist, etc.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > Your entire comment was a clever way of turning the
| tables on software engineers. Please don't insult my
| intelligence by pretending otherwise.
|
| Thank you for calling me clever, but getting personal in
| a comment section isn't exactly amenable to discussion.
| Not to mention, ignoring all of the other points
| mentioned in the reply. I will accept your compliment,
| however.
|
| > It has everything to do with why they don't want to do
| software engineering. I can't tell you how many of my
| educated peers think it's "lame" or "selling out" to work
| in a skilled career rather than being a bartender,
| activist, starving artist, etc.
|
| What does that have to do with them not wanting to work
| in semiconductor manufacturing, which generally pays less
| than median software engineering salaries and is less
| sought-after? Do you actually have any comments germane
| to the discussion at hand? Are your educated peers
| actually eschewing well-paid skilled careers, either in
| software engineering or not, in favor of those other
| professions you've listed? What other careers are they
| pursuing instead? Are you attempting to establish a link
| between them calling those professions '"lame" or
| "selling out"' and downwards mobility? How old are these
| peers, and do they actually exist? What is your actual
| point here?
| bmismyname wrote:
| Do you really believe that the people at the top of the
| pyramid are working hard every day? If you do, then I've
| got bad news for you.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| "I know you're struggling to pick between rent and food,
| but have considered working harder?"
| 77pt77 wrote:
| >Working 3 times harder for half the pay is still making
| 50% more.
|
| I can't stand these delusions.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| You don't pick the weather, but if you go with the wind,
| you're guaranteed to end up downwind.
|
| I'm not saying it's fair!
| bmismyname wrote:
| Ah yes, the old "it's the poors' fault they're poor because
| they don't want to work hard for poverty wages".
| chitowneats wrote:
| *they're
| bmismyname wrote:
| Thanks, I'm ashamed I made that typo.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| As a young (ish) person, I wholeheartedly disagree with and
| reject this worldview, and would argue you're doing others an
| enormous disservice by promoting it.
|
| There are enormous challenges. Life literally depends on
| solving them. Suggesting that they can't be solved is
| tantamount to telling humanity to give up and die.
| godelski wrote:
| > Suggesting that they can't be solved is tantamount to
| telling humanity to give up and die.
|
| Not only that, but it is _actively_ participating in the
| cyberpunk dystopia that they are saying is inevitable. If
| evil only needs good men to do nothing to grow, problems only
| need us to give up to become worse. (I'm clearly no poet)
| bmismyname wrote:
| This is a game where the only way to win is to not play, or
| to have rich parents.
| imtringued wrote:
| Yes and that is why it is better if humanity didn't
| exist. I.e. nobody plays.
|
| Entertain the idea that every human has the option to be
| reincarnated when they die. How many people would
| voluntarily kill themselves to have a chance at being
| born to rich parents? It wouldn't surprise me if one
| third of the world population is constantly killing
| themselves for that lottery ticket.
| godelski wrote:
| Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
| You're talking on a form full of people who code for a
| living. Many who have seen their lives become
| substantially better. There are many problems and
| challenges that we still face, but that doesn't mean
| there are no solutions.
| bmismyname wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/16/super-
| rich-f...
| godelski wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me here. I'm well
| aware of this. I'm saying that we need to do something
| about it or stop complaining. If you complain and take no
| further steps you are advocating for the issues, not
| condemning them.
| imtringued wrote:
| They are trivial to solve but putting the solution in
| practice is impossible.
| joemazerino wrote:
| Speak for yourself, nihilist. Opportunities abound for those
| willing to work for them.
| bmismyname wrote:
| Once you realize the game can't be won by doing what master
| tells you, you can start to beat the game. Master will not
| tell you how to beat him, for him to succeed you must fail.
| imtringued wrote:
| We have to create artificial opportunities to keep that
| facade up.
| erdos4d wrote:
| Completely agree. I see others are not liking this comment. I
| suspect they have an interest in young people continuing to
| slave themselves for less and less. The cold truth is that
| young people can cause a hell of a lot of trouble if they do it
| en mass. I encourage them to not only enjoy their lives but to
| be ready to buck the system hard when the time comes. This
| world can't continue this way and the ones pushing for it are
| not going to stop and cut the youth a fair deal until they feel
| their backs against the wall and the real fear sets in. They
| are a thick bunch, you have to get through to them this way.
| [deleted]
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "Will there be low wages with huge bonuses for the CEOs while
| the workers have to struggle to pay rent?"
|
| Isn't that the updated "American Dream"?
| bmismyname wrote:
| To quote George Carlin, "they call it the American dream
| because you have to be asleep to believe it".
| millzlane wrote:
| I heard on the news this morning it's called the American
| Experiment.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| abletonlive wrote:
| This is a "doomer" comment and should be called out as such. It
| doesn't reflect the reality that in general globally, people
| enjoy a higher quality of life than previous generations do.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Lots of Americans work as plumbers dealing with literal poop
| every day. They will even come in the middle of the night to deal
| with your poop emergency.
|
| The issue is getting paid enough, not the nature of the job.
| 0xbadc0de5 wrote:
| Just out of high-school, I worked in a fiber-optic component
| assembly plant - wave-division multiplexers, optical circulators,
| etc. It was clean room, bunny suit, microscope work for the most
| part. But it was also moderate-skill, repetitive work - they'd
| hire large cohorts and provide all the necessary training. If you
| could keep up with the quotas and QC, you were in and made a
| decent wage and there was some room for growth. If not, you were
| let go. Not the type of work I'd take a pay cut for these days,
| but for young me, it was a foot in the door, paid okay and
| provided great experience.
|
| Semiconductor plant jobs may not be as lucrative as SW
| engineering, but they are indeed _jobs_ that pay alright for low
| to moderate skilled labour. And on-shoring of tech manufacturing
| seems like a good idea.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This alludes to an important point. If the semiconductor
| manufacturers coming to the US could take advantage of the
| software skill sets for automation that exist in the US, it
| could really help people have less repetition in their job and
| make it more rewarding.
| jleyank wrote:
| I think it will come down to money. People work with hot tar in
| the blazing sun for money, and toil in Amazon warehouses for
| money. Make it worth people's while and yeah, they'll work in
| semiconducting manufacturing.
| bdw5204 wrote:
| It especially comes down to money when you're trying to hire
| people who don't have a college degree or who can't get a good
| paying job with their degree.
|
| You basically have to be making enough money to live well
| before you get to a point where you can genuinely care about
| things other than the money. Either that or the other factors
| have to be absolute necessities for you.
|
| Of course the McJobs will have to pay more if somebody hires
| away too much of their labor pool and they can't find anybody
| who wants to work for $15 an hour anymore just like they had to
| start paying more than minimum wage a few years ago when Amazon
| started paying $15 an hour for warehouse workers. That's why
| there's so much pushback against this idea.
| henning wrote:
| Yes. The same applies to infosec, COBOL, and other niches where
| jerbs allegedly can't be filled: pay more money to attract
| better and more people.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Software jobs don't have manufacturing overhead. You can't
| compare them to other technical fields.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| You can in terms of labor supply and demand, just not in
| terms of capital intensity.
| godelski wrote:
| It is interesting how often people push back against this
| solution. We see so many people choose careers based on the
| projected earnings. It is even a stereotype for immigrants: you
| can be a doctor, lawyer, (or now) software engineer. Ironically
| I think the rich would get richer if they chose to pay many of
| these employees more. We often frame things as zero sum games,
| but clearly this is a positive sum one. You invent new things
| and new wealth has entered the world.
| kazen44 wrote:
| heck, Henry ford started this buy increases wages so much his
| employees where able to buy the product they themselves have
| build.
| rch wrote:
| Offering people time and flexibility is also effective. Some
| could work '4 on 4 off' schedules, for example.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| If the pay is good why not?
| yoyopa wrote:
| worstestes wrote:
| Ah yes, blame labor. If apple, or really any tech/manufacturing
| company, want a workforce they need to pay for it accordingly.
| Money talks.
|
| My question to you -- do you work in manufacturing? Why or why
| not?
| paulmd wrote:
| Dunno why people are picking on apple here... what I have
| heard from people who worked at Intel is that apple is known
| in the industry for, I quote, "turning Intel's training
| pipeline into a waiting room for apple HR". After working at
| Intel for two weeks you are highly likely to get an offer
| from apple for twice your Intel salary and a lot of people
| take it.
|
| Apple is basically known for paying far above market to
| retain the best talent, and apple silicon reflects that (or
| did during the last 10 years although supposedly there has
| been something of an exodus over the last few). Whereas it's
| really Intel who is notorious for playing the "who can we get
| at 75% of the going market rate" game.
| honkler wrote:
| Am I going to be a wagie. If yes, then no.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| A substantial perk would be subsidized housing. A modern fab can
| cost ~$20B (maybe more in the US) and obviously the planning and
| permit process is likely also a couple order of magnitudes more
| difficult than normal real estate development.
|
| Spending ~$100M on employee housing would make the compensation a
| lot more competitive since software salaries are high but tend to
| be located in HCOL areas. Spend another ~$100M on training and
| education facilities and I think you could attract a lot of
| Americans right of of high school. Even if it still a bit less
| competitive than software it could still be the second best
| career industry.
|
| I think the industry already partly does this but doing it on a
| larger scale and marketing it as an alternative to college would
| make it more compelling. I think the industry is still like many
| other large industries that really want a degree in some
| engineering despite it not necessarily being very applicable to
| fab work.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| I could see it working if it were indirect and at arms length.
| A bit of a planned neighborhood that included High and medium
| density housing near the factory, maybe kick a few bucks the
| developers way to get it built right. That way there is supply
| of reasonably priced housing nearby.
|
| I wouldn't directly subsidize it though, that would become
| bigger shackles than work provided health care.
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>I wouldn't directly subsidize it though, that would become
| bigger shackles than work provided health care.
|
| Correct, factory towns worked out great for the factory
| owners - not so much for the people that worked there.
|
| Having a good supply of affordable housing nearby any
| facility that needs to hire a lot of low to middle paying
| people is probably a good thing, but letting the company run
| and control it will inevitably lead to abuses imo.
| splistud wrote:
| mattkrause wrote:
| Spousal hiring is another very under-rated recruiting tool,
| especially if you want to bring someone in from far away.
|
| You don't even necessarily need to _hire_ the partner directly;
| just help them find a job somewhere in the area.
| dijonman2 wrote:
| The last thing I would want is to live on a corporate campus.
|
| Lose my job and evicted at the same time? No thanks, plus I
| want privacy.
| kazen44 wrote:
| what about a company building housing for its employees.
|
| This is something that happened a lot in the netherlands in
| the city of eindhoven. Phillips had its major manufacturing
| located in the city, and build massive housing projects to
| house its workers relatively close to the plant.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well, I have lots of friends and relatives who work at the Intel
| fab and Intel is a pretty big employer, so the answer is yes,
| right?
| bnt wrote:
| I strongly recommend this channel if you're into all-things
| semiconductor industry. Great insights and (pretty much) every
| episode is well written and to the point.
| bluedino wrote:
| Depends on the role.
|
| There's a place nearby where they produce raw silicon. They are
| rated three of five stars on Famous_Job_Site, and they only hire
| through a temp service, and you can be there ten years before
| getting hired in directly. Rules like if you miss X days or are
| late Y times you get fired.
|
| The worst job is probably poly breaker, where they have three
| shifts of people in protective suits that smash large pieces of
| silicon down with hammers.
|
| Last I heard you get $14/hr. They are always hiring and nobody
| wants to work there.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/OmqsEuM
| jpgvm wrote:
| Correct.
|
| Too many people think shiny Infinity Loop One office when chips
| come up. The reality is that chip designers are like 0.1% of
| the available roles. Fab workers/supervisors/maintenance etc
| are maybe 25% and the rest is in a very very long tail of
| supply chain involving lots of vary hazardous chemicals and
| shitty manual labour.
|
| I'm all for trying to diversify semi-conductor manufacturing
| but I really doubt Americans have it in them to do what the
| Chinese/Taiwanese currently do - specifically in the fabs
| themselves and in the chemical and poly silicate plants that
| support them.
| coredog64 wrote:
| This ignores the fact that there's a number of companies that
| currently fab semiconductors in the United States.
| Phoenix/Mesa is one epicenter, but there's also some high
| tech fabs in Oregon and New York.
| jpgvm wrote:
| Yes, just the fabs. Where do they import the bulk of the
| chemicals and other inputs from?
| smegger001 wrote:
| that seems like a job that should have been replaced by a
| machine. no way it more effective to have people breaking that
| with hammers than to have machine do it.
|
| also this country really needs stricter laws on what qualifies
| as a temp
| dmitriy_ko wrote:
| > poly breaker, where they have three shifts of people in
| protective suits that smash large pieces of silicon down with
| hammers
|
| Why is this done manually? wouldn't it be easy to automate?
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| No idea, but assuming this guy doesn't live in mid-Michigan,
| there's a plant here that hires people to do the same thing.
| bluedino wrote:
| Talking about HSC ;)
| kranke155 wrote:
| If it pays enough, yes.
|
| The problem is always pay. Don't be fooled.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I worked at the Samsung A2/S2 lines in ATX with a bunch of young
| Americans back around 2011-2013. I would say they absolutely
| would.
|
| It's a very high-energy place with more going on than you can
| ever hope to keep track of. Even if the technology doesn't
| interest you, the cultural interactions should. You could have
| some days with Japanese, Koreans and Americans translating 3-ways
| in a conference room. Opportunities for business travel are
| probably restricted more now, but when I was there they
| practically begged us to travel to the Korean sites in hopes that
| we would learn more faster.
|
| Some roles can be far more exciting than others. Someone has to
| work security and manage the facilities. That said, all the
| important roles seem to be the compelling ones too. I don't know
| of anyone who had a hard time getting another super cushy job
| after time at Samsung, so it's also great for long term career
| prospects.
| gopher_space wrote:
| > Some roles can be far more exciting than others. Someone has
| to work security and manage the facilities.
|
| This would be an interesting employer for many trades.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| rudididdjdh wrote:
| cxr wrote:
| I can't corroborate this at all.
|
| I come from a CS background. If you leave school and enter the
| workforce at SAS, you will be at a disadvantage insofar as you
| are looking for a workplace that you hope to learn something
| from or one that you hope reinforces good engineering
| practices. The semiconductor industry, from the vantage point
| of an experienced systems thinker, reinforces awful engineering
| practices. All the things that SE folks take for granted--
| version control, e.g, as a discipline/tool to name one example,
| for regression analysis--say goodbye to any of these things,
| along with any expectation of competence from your colleagues.
|
| The semiconductor industry sources heavily from the defense
| sector, and this has deleterious, catastrophic effects.
|
| A close friend (from a non-CS engineering background) I know to
| still be at SAS. We don't talk about finances, but at around 8
| years in, I estimate that he just recently (since COVID)
| crossed the six figure threshold. He's in a fairly senior role.
| Meanwhile: "What's x86?" -- a direct quote from a conversation
| not too long ago.
|
| He has no real professional experience outside of SAS, was not
| set up in an environment that rewards "extracurricular"
| experience, so he doesn't have any of that, either, and he's
| effectively stuck as a result of the "golden" handcuffs that
| the path at SAS has led him on.
|
| Don't work in the semiconductor industry, folks. What you can
| expect to be is a monkey pressing buttons on a machine (that
| your supervisor--and their supervisor--doesn't understand, and
| nor will you; you pass butter). Make no mistake: there's an
| abundance of low-hanging fruit. But you won't have, as Gerry
| Weinberg put it, "permission" to pick it.
|
| By all means, if your prospects/ambitions look to be something
| like working for the state/federal government, learning nothing
| over your career, and cashing mediocre checks for doing
| mediocre work along the way, then by all means go for it.
| Otherwise, it is likelier that you'll be hobbled by your time
| in the industry. And not for no good reason. If I'm evaluating
| someone and it came up that they'd done any significant time in
| the world of semiconductors, the net impression it'd have on me
| (having hash an insider's view of it) would be one worse than
| if they said that they'd just gotten their degree and had spent
| the last _N_ years flipping burgers, cf Dan Luu.
|
| Don't do semiconductors, folks.
|
| PS: sorry, drunk.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| sxr's posts about Samsung always strike me as being
| particularly bitter. The thing about chronically bitter
| people is that they're implacable.
| assttoasstmgr wrote:
| You're right, we should encourage the new generation to all
| strive to become overpaid mediocre SWEs only in it for the
| quick cash, because the world doesn't have enough shitty food
| delivery apps. Hopefully I've painted this with a broad
| enough brush. There is more to a fulfilling career than
| money.
|
| In fact, an entire generation of SWEs who forgot the concepts
| of simplicity and efficiency, coding a never-ending avalanche
| of rubbish bloated apps is why we continually need new
| silicon.
| runnerup wrote:
| https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-
| death...
|
| Recent front page submission comes to mind XD
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This is like saying don't go into medicine because you have
| to be a resident nurse along the way.
|
| Semiconductor fabrication is the most advanced engineering
| humanity has ever attempted, so you will reach your threshold
| eventually solving problems that might not have answers
| (depending on your role). Not everyone wants to do that
| though, and the world needs implementers and those focused on
| details.
|
| Pay? Could be higher for sure.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| They were giving anecdotes of "fairly senior people" and
| talking about the incompetence expected of managers, which
| is not analogous to a resident nurse.
| nixass wrote:
| Drunk is not an excuse for such a crappy view on the world
| jimbokun wrote:
| > but at around 8 years in, I estimate that he just recently
| (since COVID) crossed the six figure threshold.
|
| Better than most people.
| verall wrote:
| Not every semicon is SAS, I've heard similar things as what
| your friend has said about them though. No offense but your
| post comes off as someone who has spent their whole life in
| software and has no experience in semicon.
| cxr wrote:
| Maybe I didn't succeed at getting it across, but my
| anecdotes about SAS are not only by proxy. (I.e. my
| friend's experience and that alone.) I worked there.
| samfisher83 wrote:
| I used to work in semi. Pay and opportunities are way better in
| software.
| abledon wrote:
| just looked at that youtube channel... holy cow the amount of
| content coming out is huge. surely its not just 1 guy doing all
| the research _and_ narrating? he probably has a team?
|
| Edit: wow ok it really is 1 guy. (albeit good patreon revenue to
| pay for research time)
|
| from patreon: > My name is Jon and I make videos on the
| Asianometry YouTube channel. I started the channel as a way to
| share things that I've learned about Chinese and Taiwanese
| history as well as vlog a little bit on my explorations of
| Taiwan.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Young Americans are perfectly willing to do a half-assed job when
| conditions suck and pay is low. They are harder to exploit than
| foreign workers and previous generations because the "hard work"
| mentality really doesn't last when the rewards get less with
| every generation. They will either leave a job whenever they feel
| like they've had enough or just phone it in for a good long while
| giving shitty performance for shitty pay.
|
| It is entirely possible to get good work out of younger
| generations, but you really have to start paying them
| competitively with how much you pay management and how much you
| pay capital.
|
| It turns out there is a whole lot of rent seeking by people who
| don't do much (own capital, work as a middle manager, own real
| estate) and to compete, people are just checking out instead of
| trying to climb to an ever smaller top.
|
| If it seems impossible to have a home, a family, and resources to
| actually do things with your life, living in a van and traveling
| around actually enjoying the world, even in rather extreme
| poverty, is quite a better life than being a wage slave.
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Excellent. My background is computer engineering who enrolled
| shit load of computer network classes, interned for a Cisco gold
| partner, but then switched to software development. At some
| points my network engineers friends (and hardware stuff
| engineers) turned into software development, mostly web
| development.
|
| I'd like to add one more factor here. It's transferable knowledge
| AND cheap cost of building your own business. When I was an
| intern to install and config a bunch of switches, routers,
| firewalls, and realized a switch is so expensive that I wouldn't
| be able to build my own business like this. So I got into
| software development job. It's way easier and also able to do
| side software project. IaaS or PaaS is so cheap, no needs to mess
| with data center myself.
|
| Work for X for a decade and open your own X business is not
| applicable to semiconductor job.
| kazen44 wrote:
| starting a networking company (except consulting) is extremely
| hard. Building an ISP is even harder and requires insane
| amounts of money.
|
| Most of my friends in the network engineering field either work
| at companies that are large/complex enough to have challenging
| environments with proper networking hardware, or work as a
| freelance consultant for said companies.
|
| The problem with career growth in network engineering is that,
| to grow in technical skills, usually larger networks are
| require to get access to gear and systems that can pose a
| challenge. Not a lot of those companies exist. Also, making a
| screw up in suchs an environment is far more detrimental than
| in a small network, because of the increased scale/complexity
| of the network.
| 7speter wrote:
| Really, after watching channels like Moores Law Is Dead and other
| techtubers and learning about the gpu and cpu markets and
| products, I wish I got into electrical engineering to so that I
| could work on the design teams at Intel or AMD or NVidia or Apple
| graton wrote:
| Tangentially related is the lack of young people entering the
| "trades" (plumbing, electrical, construction, etc).
|
| Can't help but think that now is probably a good time to enter a
| "trade" due to the lack of people who are doing that.
| rcarr wrote:
| Everyone I know who got an apprenticeship after school instead
| of going to uni are absolutely raking it in and have enjoyed a
| significantly better quality of life than their uni going
| peers. I personally can't see how the uni goers will end up
| having a better time in the long run as the official narrative
| goes. The majority of the tradies seem to end up buying
| multiple houses and going the landlord route for early
| retirement.
| TylerE wrote:
| Ask them about their back and knees when they're 50.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Sitting in a chair is really unhealthy, so it isn't like
| the programmers have dodged selling their bodies for a nice
| salary.
| AngryData wrote:
| Do you really think sitting in a chair is even comparable
| to move hundred or thousands of pounds of work materials
| at a time, being bent or twisted into access holes, being
| exposed to various construction dusts and materials, or
| even just working in often excessively hot or cold
| environments?
| pessimizer wrote:
| I think it's worth looking at, rather than making an
| assumption. Tradespeople are a lot more physically fit
| than the median office drone. I had abs when I worked on
| the factory floor, when I was promoted to the offices, I
| put on 40 lbs.
| wyre wrote:
| Stranding desks and treadmill desks also exist. Employers
| might even buy you one if you ask!
| mhh__ wrote:
| "really" unhealthy
| bee_rider wrote:
| Quotes for emphasis?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Quotes are because you are comparing damage from sitting
| in a chair that can be mitigated by walking around,
| standing, and working out, to inevitable damage from
| inhaling fumes and particles, lifting objects, and
| repeatedly contorting one's body and putting pressure on
| joints that have a far higher probability of irreversible
| damage.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| America is almost 50% obese and average lifespan is
| dropping. "No one is healthy"
| buggythebug wrote:
| Such a stupid question. Some will, some won't.
| apengwin wrote:
| if you pay them they will come
| JimmieMcnulty wrote:
| Honestly, based on the content of this video and the replies from
| the prior HN thread, it seems like folks are locked into the
| belief that the current manufacturing... "experience" (for lack
| of a better term) for the workers involved will be lifted from
| Asia and dropped into the US, but that doesn't actually make any
| sense to me.
|
| Sure, that's how the world knows how to make chips now, but given
| the varying laws between those two places, and the varying
| workforce cultures, I think it's safe to say that adaptations
| will be made to the experience to suit American workers, and
| those adaptations won't result in meaningful drop offs in quality
| or execution.
|
| As an outsider, it seems pretty clear that the rejection to the
| industry is more about the cultural mismatch than it is to the
| actual work needing to be executed.
|
| It's just weird to me that people really believe nothing about
| the job will change, and all of the Asian cultural aspects of the
| way the job is currently executed would be dropped on American
| workers with zero adjustments.
| moomin wrote:
| Nissan ran a very successful car manufacturing facility for
| many years in the U.K. This kind of cultural adaptation is
| exactly how they did it. And it turns out that Geordies were
| more than capable of executing "The Nissan Way".
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Another attempt, where Toyota and GM attempted to build a
| plant together in Fremont, California:
|
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Not just an attempt.
|
| Toyota is the one of largest employers of Americans in the
| auto industry today:
| https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/top-suppliers/car-
| manufac...
| Apocryphon wrote:
| True, they have plenty of plants, I just mean it sounds
| like NUMMI wasn't as successful as it could've been.
| vxNsr wrote:
| According to that story which I've listened to before,
| that partnership had a very specific set of goals, once
| those goals were achieved or deemed unachievable (as the
| case may be) the purpose of the plant no longer existed
| so they shut it down.
| chris_j wrote:
| Why "ran" in the past tense? The plant is still running.
|
| And why the reference to Geordies - natives of Newcastle -
| when the plant is in Sunderland?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motor_Manufacturing_U.
| ..
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| _And why the reference to Geordies - natives of Newcastle -
| when the plant is in Sunderland?_
|
| Google maps tells me those two places are only 14.3 miles
| away. So 1) that's pretty understandable to conflate and 2)
| a lot of people from Newcastle probably commute there.
| chris_j wrote:
| The reason I noticed it is that the two cities, though
| very close geographically, have an intense and not
| entirely friendly rivalry that goes back hundreds of
| years and continues to this day. See for example the
| History section of [0]. Although it's understandable that
| someone not familiar with the area could confuse the two
| places, friends from Sunderland tell that they are pretty
| offended when they are mistaken for Geordies. I imagine
| it's like accusing Bart Simpson and his friends of being
| from Shelbyville.
|
| [0]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne%E2%80%93Wear_derby
|
| EDIT: Please forgive me for bringing this up. I
| appreciate it's not particularly relevant to moomin's
| comment about the culture of the Nissan plant, which I
| agree with aside from my nitpicks, nor to the original
| video.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| I don't know that it's universal. At least some people I
| know from Sunderland call themselves Geordies.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| My experience with the British is they frequently have
| stark rival differences in cultural identity based on
| which part of which city they live.
| nmstoker wrote:
| Not exclusively a British idiosyncrasy, given gangs and
| tribal habits elsewhere, but you're quite right that we
| Brits do take to various ways of distinguishing ourselves
| on sometimes questionable grounds! Location, education
| level, schools, universities, colleges within
| universities, accents, vocabulary, class, sports
| affiliations, it's endless!
| kazen44 wrote:
| same goes for many other places in europe aswell.
| (netherlands, germany, france etc).
|
| just look at football rivalries to get the idea.
| pessimizer wrote:
| 14 miles in British is something like 200 miles in
| American.
| Curzel wrote:
| Agree... only issue might be managers and supervisors coming
| from manufacturing in Asia, they will have to re-learn how to
| treat workers, but I am hopeful
| the_only_law wrote:
| Wasn't there a documentary about this or something? I swear
| I've seen this premise play out somewhere.
| droidist2 wrote:
| Maybe American Factory (2019) or Gung Ho (1986). The latter
| isn't a documentary though.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I think the former was it. I only caught clips of it, but
| the previous comment basically summed up what I saw.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I mean, Toyota and Hyundai make cars in the South, so that
| particular lesson has been learned before
| okdood64 wrote:
| Are we lumping up modern Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese
| culture into one now?
| triceratops wrote:
| Surely in terms of _work_ culture they 're more similar
| to each other than any of them are to North American work
| culture? That's the culture we're all talking about here.
| pm90 wrote:
| Why would it lead to dropoffs in quality? I think u are
| underestimating how much ingenuity workers of all cultures have
| when its encouraged. Considering the strength of American
| research universities, I believe that we might see gains in
| quality and productivity.
| madrox wrote:
| I think OP is agreeing with you
| dirtyid wrote:
| Since there's several car manufacturing comparisons of American
| manufacturing adapting to East Asian manufacturing culture, I
| feel like there's consensus that Japanese built cars still have
| tighter QC than ones built in North America. Better fit etc,
| the kind of details in semi and would compound when moving from
| millimeters to nanometers. My understanding is the commitment
| for semi technicians / equipment engineers are also much more
| rigorous, people being practically married to their stations.
| Hard to say if high-end chip manufacturing processes refined
| under East Asian sweatshop work culture that's still better
| than the alternative can be adapated to west.
|
| Which is not to say American's can't make chips, perhaps with
| less efficiency. Which ultimately doesn't matter because semi
| is being elevated to critical strategic industry and the
| governemnt's money printer is going to keep US fabs open
| regardless of how competitive US fabs are.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's true that Americans are less likely to work 16 hours days
| with low pay.
|
| The issue is that the Asian work culture in the tech industry
| is not sustainable, as seen from their demographic replacement
| rates. They are burning too hot and the culture will change or
| they will disappear.
| tuatoru wrote:
| Yeah, the next decade is going to be interesting to watch.
|
| In Taiwan, for instance, the working age population peaked
| just five years ago[1], so I doubt that the fact that their
| worker shortage is permanent and going to get worse has yet
| sunk in the brains of the management and political class in
| Taiwan.
|
| Give it ten years, they might start understanding what's
| going on. Based on China's and Japan's responses, they'll
| have no idea what to do.
|
| 1. https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/20-
| 64...
| logicchains wrote:
| >As an outsider, it seems pretty clear that the rejection to
| the industry is more about the cultural mismatch than it is to
| the actual work needing to be executed.
|
| Look at Intel. It's a western company, but it famously fell
| behind its competitors due to offering comparatively shit pay
| and conditions to its staff, so the best people left. The
| problem is hardware company culture, not Asian company culture.
|
| Apple's M1 is an example of what a company that compensates its
| staff fairly can achieve in hardware. Hardware companies need
| to get the idea out of their head that they can pay people shit
| (even when they've got huge monopoly profits like Intel had)
| and still expect to remain competitive.
| [deleted]
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _Look at Intel. It 's a western company, but it famously fell
| behind its competitors due to offering comparatively shit pay
| and conditions to its staff, so the best people left._
|
| As far as I know, working in a non-chip part of Intel in the
| 90s, the place was always an abusive sweatshop except maybe
| for some top people. And Intel isn't some failed from the
| start enterprise - they're currently third or so in a long,
| long competition among fabs, chip-makers and etc. They had a
| long, long successful run while being awful.
|
| Essentially, model the of gaslighting, abusing and discarding
| people works great as long as a company can keep their
| employee's illusions alive and/or trapping them so they have
| no choices regardless.
|
| As far as I know, Apple pays well compared to the US median
| for a job but poorly relative to other FANG companies. Plenty
| of tales of abuse and secrecy exist in Apple but plenty of
| people assert the virtues of working there and show great
| loyalty.
|
| Which is to say these practices are very common in globally
| competitive markets. A company that pays well and inspires
| great loyalty and hard work from it's employees can always be
| undercut by a company that pays shit and still inspires great
| loyalty and hard work from it's employees. And if the model
| falls-apart, it can be rebuilt elsewhere (this is the
| problem/challenge of markets that are truly global).
| klyrs wrote:
| Hot take, apparently: VHDL/Verilog developers should make 5x
| what JavaScript developers make, and not the other way
| around.
| tester756 wrote:
| Hmm
|
| In my country there are probably 2? 3? serious semico
| companies
|
| And shitton of JS-using companies
|
| Maybe this explains why embedded/hardware/firmware devs are
| underpaid?
| dougabug wrote:
| If it weren't for pesky things like supply and demand.
|
| If the pay is so low, it's kind of curious that the supply
| doesn't drop.
| JimmieMcnulty wrote:
| Just to be clear, I make no value judgement about Asian
| cultural norms w/r/t chip manufacturing, my comment is merely
| meant to suggest the employment experience probably will be
| adjusted to fit American cultural mores, so the concern that
| few Americans would want these jobs isn't entirely fair.
|
| I am entirely unqualified to judge cultural
| advantages/disadvantages in the manufacturing industry.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Apple's M1 is an irrelevant comparison. Apple doesn't run a
| fab. Yes, Intel lost a lot of chip designers, etc, but the
| submission is about fab related work, which Apple is not
| involved in.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Intel lost because of their business model. TSMC was making
| an order of magnitude more chips at far lower margin and all
| those manufacturing runs/experiments let them advance that
| much faster.
| nightski wrote:
| Isn't M1 manufactured by TSMC? Are you saying TSMC has good
| pay and treats it's workers great? (it might I honestly don't
| know).
| KerrAvon wrote:
| I'm not taking a position either way, butI believe the
| poster is talking about the design/integration phase.
| [deleted]
| mikewarot wrote:
| Alignment of incentives is how you get people motivated. If
| you're married to a process line, you should get a cut of the
| profits that specific line makes, and that cut should go up over
| time.
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