Industry Career Advice

[TranslationStation6]

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to ask for career advice here but this is the area for questions so

I'm a process engineer at a university clean room in the US. I work on some simple projects that companies hire us to complete in addition to training students, working on our own projects and doing a bit of maintenance. I have been doing this for ~4 years, and started after completing my masters degree (electrical engineering). In this context I have done every step of most fabrication processes except implantation and packaging.

I would like to move into industry but I do not have any industry experience and do not know anyone in industry to ask for advice. I suspect that right now it may not be too hard to get a process engineering job at a fab? Is applications engineering a good long term career move? I like some of the applications positions I see but imagine that devoting so much time to learning one specific tool for one organization would not lead to many transferrable skills for when I leave the role. Is there a risk of being pigeon holed? I would like to do product engineering but I do not have any hardware design experience which seems desired. Test and validation also seem intriguing, but have a similar issue.

Are there any areas that seem more promising for development than others? I just feel a bit lost when I look at applications and don't know what is sensible to pursue. I'd thought that I had a solid skill set and resume for this field but find my self questioning that as I look at requirements.

I can say that I would like to live in as large of a metro area as possible.

 

[nghanayem]

If you want hardware/design, then an area you might be able to leverage your fab experience to get a job in would be design enablement, PDKs, EDA, analog design (as that requires much higher understanding of the devices than logic folks), or tape outs. As for the tape outs I somehow was a number two candidate after a ton of deliberation from the firm in question with a ChE BS and practically no circuit knowledge whatsoever by selling the fact that I would have a better understanding of the process/could speak the language of the fab folks. Albeit that was an opening for fresh out of college folks so I would expect it to be a bit harder (however given your MS EE I think you should match up nicely).

If you chose or are forced to stay on the fab side, I wouldn't be too worried about being pigeonholed. I've know a good number of folks at my dry etch department that have moved there from things like wet etch, planar, CVD, and even a gal from litho. The thing is if you get moved from one tool to another (be it of the same type or of totally unrelated) that experience you gain on one helps you be a better process engineer for the other. It also gives perspectives that your teammates might not have and allow for even better solutions. I believe that many of the skills of being a good process engineer for one tool are generally transferable to any kind of tool (stats, process control, being detail oriented, multitasking, ability to work under pressure, troubleshooting, having good relations with your technicians, ect). You can also try moving into the worlds of defmet or integration where you have more of a bird's eye view of whole sections of the process flow. If big metros is what you want I think TI, Samsung, or AMAT's Texas factory would be top of the list given the proximity to large Texas cities. TSMC/intel AZ would also be fine picks. Folks like Intel/LAM/analog devices in OR, GF in NY, intel NM, wolfspeed, Micron (ID/VA), etc would be less desirable given the smaller metros they are near.

Happy hunting!

 

[TranslationStation6]

Thank you so much for your thorough reply!

After some more thought I think one feeling I have is that while I like cleanroom work and would like to continue doing it for now, I do not want to do it for the rest of my life and I do not know how easy it would be to transition out if I begin progressing in process engineering. I think ultimately I would like to be on a path with a fair bit of geographic flexibility, it bothers me that to go into industry I have to leave my current very nice very large metro area and move to one of a relatively small number of smaller areas due to the nature of fabs and their locations. It is my sense that more hardware (or certainly software) oriented positions have a more diverse array of locations than process/fab positions so I think that motivates some of this. Of course it may be the case that after years of fab work you simply move into high enough management that you are out of the fab anyway. I will look into design enablement (which I had never even heard of before!) as a potential initial path, Thank you!

It is certainly good and reassuring to hear that it is not too hard to move between process modules.

Sorry if this question seems a bit odd or naive but are there any positions or areas known for being particularly hard, stressful, less well paid or less desirable than the others? Like with anything I am sure there are stereotypes around these things but I truly do have anyone to ask about them.

 

[cliff]

Email me if you want analog EDA and a lot of stress. (sarcasm)

 

[Daniel Nenni]

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to ask for career advice here but this is the area for questions so

I'm a process engineer at a university clean room in the US. I work on some simple projects that companies hire us to complete in addition to training students, working on our own projects and doing a bit of maintenance. I have been doing this for ~4 years, and started after completing my masters degree (electrical engineering). In this context I have done every step of most fabrication processes except implantation and packaging.

I would like to move into industry but I do not have any industry experience and do not know anyone in industry to ask for advice. I suspect that right now it may not be too hard to get a process engineering job at a fab? Is applications engineering a good long term career move? I like some of the applications positions I see but imagine that devoting so much time to learning one specific tool for one organization would not lead to many transferrable skills for when I leave the role. Is there a risk of being pigeon holed? I would like to do product engineering but I do not have any hardware design experience which seems desired. Test and validation also seem intriguing, but have a similar issue.

Are there any areas that seem more promising for development than others? I just feel a bit lost when I look at applications and don't know what is sensible to pursue. I'd thought that I had a solid skill set and resume for this field but find my self questioning that as I look at requirements.

I can say that I would like to live in as large of a metro area as possible.

TSMC or Intel would be my picks. Leading edge fabs are where the action is! I was fortunate enough to travel early in my career and feel it was the best education. Now that semiconductor manufacturing is regionalizing the opportunities for travel look good.

Keep us posted on your progress. We have a job board in case you are interested. TSMC and Intel are featured.

Job Board - SemiWiki

semiwiki.com

 

[Tanj]

it bothers me that to go into industry I have to leave my current very nice very large metro area and move to one of a relatively small number of smaller areas due to the nature of fabs and their locations.

There are also industrial labs where clean-rooms are maintained an order of magnitude larger than your university likely has, but may be closer to urban areas. For example Applied Materials. Still, by and large manufacturing (of any kind) has reasons not to be in expensive urban areas. Phoenix, Austin, Portland, are probably the largest cities associated with major semiconductor manufacturing. But bear in mind that a smaller city with hi tech jobs is often a pleasant place to live with a lot going on. Keep an open mind.

You might scout which locations are near significant university campuses, too, and for bonus what other employers are sited near by.

 

[TranslationStation6]

TSMC or Intel would be my picks. Leading edge fabs are where the action is! I was fortunate enough to travel early in my career and feel it was the best education. Now that semiconductor manufacturing is regionalizing the opportunities for travel look good.

Keep us posted on your progress. We have a job board in case you are interested. TSMC and Intel are featured.

Job Board - SemiWiki

semiwiki.com

Thanks! I've been keeping my eye on it : )

There are also industrial labs where clean-rooms are maintained an order of magnitude larger than your university likely has, but may be closer to urban areas. For example Applied Materials. Still, by and large manufacturing (of any kind) has reasons not to be in expensive urban areas. Phoenix, Austin, Portland, are probably the largest cities associated with major semiconductor manufacturing. But bear in mind that a smaller city with hi tech jobs is often a pleasant place to live with a lot going on. Keep an open mind.

You might scout which locations are near significant university campuses, too, and for bonus what other employers are sited near by.

Thanks these are useful suggestions.

 

[md yasir bashir]

I’ve been in a similar situation, trying to switch industries. One thing that really helped me was working with a resume writing service. It not only helped me present my skills better but also made sure my resume passed through ATS, which can be tricky if you don’t understand how the system works.

 

[Artificer60]

After some more thought I think one feeling I have is that while I like cleanroom work and would like to continue doing it for now, I do not want to do it for the rest of my life and I do not know how easy it would be to transition out if I begin progressing in process engineering.

My personal experience has been that there is no real danger of getting pigeon holed as a process engineer if you are working for a large company. I have seen many opportunities for lateral transfers to positions across the company. In fact, very few of the people that were in the process engineering ranks when I started are still there. Most of them have transitioned to other roles within the company (myself included). The trick is to get your foot in the door. To that end I would second the comment about the importance of your resume. That is probably even more important as now you have to get your resume past a bot before a human even sees it.