I quit my last job in Jan 2022. Thankfully, I had about a year worth of savings, so I decided I'd do what I had never done before; take up the job search with the goal of finding a position that was:
0) remote
1) highly technically challenging
2) supported by an extremely competent team
3) payed great
I interviewed at every company I could find that seemed to fulfill those requirements. I averaged 0-3 interviews per month for just over a year. If I'm remembering correctly, I typically did between 0 and 5 applications per month.
In the end, I found a position on the software team with a company bringing up new silicon for accelerating deep learning inference. It fulfills (1) and (2) in spades; I've never done hardware before (let alone TFLOP scale semiconductors), and the team is largely 30 year+ career engineers. I had to cave on (3) .. I took about a 50% pay cut from my last position, which was hard to swallow, but I still make a very comfortable living. I'd do it again, without even pausing to think about it.
I had multiple offers over the year I was looking, but didn't get one that fulfilled (0) through (3). I had more trouble than usual getting offers, but I was also much more stringent in sticking to my 'morals', which I think was the major contributor. In terms of comp, the offer I accepted was the worst, by a lot. Most offers I got were for >200k USD, with options, and generally mediocre ancillary benefits (which I mostly don't care about).
To keep myself busy during my job search I have a few long-running side projects, which I payed significant attention to. I also traveled a fair bit, and spent ~8 months in Central America where I learned to surf, and speak very broken Spanish.
> How have your feelings about the industry changed?
From what I can tell, the demand for folks who are highly motivated to do interesting and challenging work has not waned.
> In the end, I found a position on the software team with a company bringing up new silicon for accelerating deep learning inference.
I've done a bit of this and adjacent things in the past... any idea if they're still hiring?
> I took about a 50% pay cut from my last position
Yeah, it's crazy. Hardware adjacent work is quite technically challenging, but tends to not pay well. You've gotta know hardware and software but the pay does not reflect this. Similar for embedded work.
Yup, aggressively. Drop me a line; personal email is on my profile.
> Hardware adjacent work is quite technically challenging, but tends to not pay well.
Yeah, the explanation I got is that, specifically for a semiconductor company, it's so bloody expensive to tape out chips that a huge portion of the capital in the company gets allocated to that. Checks out, but it's still a little lame.
0) remote
1) highly technically challenging
2) supported by an extremely competent team
3) payed great
I interviewed at every company I could find that seemed to fulfill those requirements. I averaged 0-3 interviews per month for just over a year. If I'm remembering correctly, I typically did between 0 and 5 applications per month.
In the end, I found a position on the software team with a company bringing up new silicon for accelerating deep learning inference. It fulfills (1) and (2) in spades; I've never done hardware before (let alone TFLOP scale semiconductors), and the team is largely 30 year+ career engineers. I had to cave on (3) .. I took about a 50% pay cut from my last position, which was hard to swallow, but I still make a very comfortable living. I'd do it again, without even pausing to think about it.
I had multiple offers over the year I was looking, but didn't get one that fulfilled (0) through (3). I had more trouble than usual getting offers, but I was also much more stringent in sticking to my 'morals', which I think was the major contributor. In terms of comp, the offer I accepted was the worst, by a lot. Most offers I got were for >200k USD, with options, and generally mediocre ancillary benefits (which I mostly don't care about).
To keep myself busy during my job search I have a few long-running side projects, which I payed significant attention to. I also traveled a fair bit, and spent ~8 months in Central America where I learned to surf, and speak very broken Spanish.
> How have your feelings about the industry changed?
From what I can tell, the demand for folks who are highly motivated to do interesting and challenging work has not waned.