I spent 6 months working at Intel.... I honestly believe the company is facing serious challenges with little hope for recovery. Look at the last five years - Intel has been aggressively hiring PhDs from US universities, offering generous stock packages in an effort to bring in talent, but this strategy doesn’t seem to address deeper (and certainly systemic) problems that can be found accros the board... One major problem I saw is the lack of genuine passion for the fabs w/many employees joining for the brand name or other short-term goals rather than a true commitment to advancing the company’s mission. A bit greedy but it's OK... Restrictions related to export control laws further limit the talent pool. However, the most significant issue is the lack of talent compared to competitors as many engs have moved to companies like Apple and Google, leaving Intel struggling to innovate (OK, maybe not Google who has problems of its own)... There is a pervasive desire to maintain the status quo, which might work in slower-moving industries, but in the semiconductor space, it is a recipe for failure. W/out non-stops improvements in manufacturing processes and technology, Intel risks being overtaken entirely by competitors. It feels like the company is on a precarious path, and I worry about the broader implications if it fails, particularly for taxpayers who could end up bearing the burden. Also, it feels major layoffs are coming and I am sorry that my former peers have to go through this. I hope things will not be this dark but I doubt it. Good luck all.
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For 6 months, great perspective, and you correctly identify the systemic issues. There is still potential to turn this thing around, but a lot more cuts will come and there is still a large chance of complete failure. But engineers like myself enjoy a challenge, and from that perspective, there is a lot here worth fixing assuming the pay checks keep coming.
Wow a whole 6 months?! Please give us your experienced opinion!
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"It pervades the entire company."
It pervades the entire industry, or all the industry, or the entirety of the western hemisphere. Just look around. Everything/eveyone is lgtbqaipbxyz friendly, or "supposed" to be, people with certain se-ual preference need to be given privilege, people who 'identify' as some exotic gender need to be given privilege and frankly, all of that is fine by me but these privileges are not created rather given at the cost of deserving people. You cut quality out and fill DEI in then you are sure to go south. This looks like a China/Russia conspiracy so easily to bring down US of A!
any PhD at Intel worth their salt would realize they could get a better offer that would 2x their salary at Intel. So the PhDs left at Intel are mostly useless, like the Anthropology PhD who is a Senior Fellow VP at Intel
My old American manager who was from a private university professor once told me during my old review that PhD people in our group are useless. They are only good in academy or on paper in their study field. They are useless in real world or sometimes have no clue what they are doing at Intel. Not sure if he still works at Intel. He joined Intel to have good insurance for his wife cancer treatment.
For a while, I had a job recruiting techs and managers for the fabs. I wasn’t part of HR but worked for the fabs. Intel College Recruiting actually locked me out of my Handshake Account (Handshake is a common platform to schedule recruiting events) because I wanted to recruit from local colleges. I was told that they weren’t Intel target schools: which meant that, by the numbers, they didn’t have the right demographics to support diverse hiring. So…I could go schools on the East Coast (which was expensive) but they didn’t support me to go going schools across the river in Vancouver. I did anyway by working with the schools directly but it always bothered me.
I don’t disagree with DEI (although I hate that term). It’s just that we do it badly. It’s more performative than meaningful. My only consolation is that a lot of those that were pushing the DEI efforts have gotten buyouts and have left.
I worked with a new PhD at one of the Intel Labs. "They" could not synthesize one line of functional test code. But, they could take credit for all the work I did.
" Look at the last five years - Intel has been aggressively hiring PhDs from US universities, offering generous stock packages in an effort to bring in talent"
The education system and the culture in the US have taken a downward turn the last couple of decades. Add to that the bias towards cheapness and DEI and Intel has built up a lot of rot throughout the entire company. I am not sure that can be cleaned out. It pervades the entire company.