I join in September after graduating with my Bachelor's degree. I need some guidance from current and former Intel employees on what the future looks for Intel. I would appreciate only sincere replies to this thread. Thank you.
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It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered BSD community when IDC confirmed that BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for BSD because BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for BSD. As many of us are already aware, BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that BSD has steadily declined in market share. BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save BSD from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Make an appt with the person who sent you the offer. Kindly hand them the piece of paper that has the offer and say, "No thank you!" You'll immediately improve your life span and understand you I'll have gained years of personal time back.
Find a job elsewhere, you have 4 months to do that. Don't join this hell hole. Your career will be ruined.
Thank you all for your thoughts and advice. Appreciate that some senior engineers took the time and commented. It's going to be a tough decision
It seems the last poster may not have seen all the propaganda and hype that new hires are getting. The point was that no matter what you are told YOU are not their concern.
I obviously don't have a problem with profits. There's nothing wrong with them and they have contributed to a pretty portfolio.
The OP was asking about coming to work for Intel as an RCG. My opinion is that Intel is not a great place to start a career and grow quickly. Having started somewhere else and learning at a much faster pace,,I assert it is a valid observation. I pity the new RCG who tries to learn something and gets the "IP restricted wall thrown up time after time.
Intel can be a rough environment at any time. It will be particularly challenging to join while many people -- long-time employees with lots of institutional knowledge -- are being pushed out. Intel has a saying: You own your own employment. That means it's up to you to make sure you keep your skills relevant to the company's needs. You should extend that to making sure you are networking outside Intel and are prepared to leave for a better opportunity when you want/need to.
If you take the job at Intel, be aware that the company is unlikely to be a "home" for the rest of your career. Also be sensitive to the feelings of your coworkers who have seen many talented colleagues depart and who are uncertain what the future might hold for them. The Intel culture is not for everyone, but if you go in with your eyes wide open, you could use it as a career stepping stone. (As my former manager used to say "Don't be more loyal to the company than the company is to you.")
That last response was pretty weird - "it's about profits". OF COURSE IT IS!! But this response implies that it's somehow perverted to operate a business for profit. Unbelievable! Pity the engineers that never went to business school and lack the understanding of profit.
Imagine - if no profit, there's no profit sharing, no dividend payments, no stock to offer, no raises, no pay for performance and no incentive to improve. If that is you, then choose another industry altogether.
Intel is a great place to learn a LOT and to be challenged. Yeah, during ramps, excursions, natural disasters, project deadline, etc... the hours can get crazy in cycles. There's always an ebb and flow. Best time to ride that wave is when you are young. And any tech company will have these... all the time.
And layoff risk is everywhere. Do be fooled by a false promise of security in the business world. It does not exist.
So it's really about you. Reward does not come from avoiding risk. Become cynical later in life, but not now.
I recently retired after two decades at Intel. Intel was was basically my second career after 15 years at another company
Here are my perspectives:
-Always remember that the minute after you are hired, there are people trying to figure out how to eliminate you.
-My opinion is that Intel is NOT a good place to get valuable experience quickly, unless you think evaluating statistics is really a career enhancing skill. I was appalled out how slowly new engineers learned there. There is no learning from cause and effect "don't touch anything" You can't make a change without weeks or months of change control review. "That's not POR (Plan of Record) or Copy Exactly); and a dozen more things I could mention. This may work well for ,manufacturing yields, but it's not good for your development.
-Unless you are on vacation, you will basically be (unofficially of course) on-call 24/7. This isn't that unusual in the manufacturing world, but you need to be aware of it.
Is it the worst place in the world to work? Absolutely not. You'll need to remember though that is ALWAYS about profit. I believe it was Robert Noyce (one of Intel's founders) that said I I am paraphrasing here) "it's about profit. It always has been and always will be"
It's a great first job. Don't stay there longer than 5 years.
I joined last June. I've learned more in the past year than I have anywhere else. I have not been impacted by layoffs this past week, but it remains to be see what will happen in June with project cuts. I'm networking (as one should, anyway) internally and externally. You can be entrepreneurial at Intel, so ask how people could use help and identify ways you can help them with your greatest gifts.
I agree with others that it probably isn't the best place to build a long term career. But if you can weather the layoffs and hang in for a few years, you will be in a great position later to work for a more stable company.
In the meantime keep networking, make training a priority (schedule it!), updated your LinkedIn connections often, and keep your resume current. Because if you do get cut, you won't need to scramble to get all of those bases covered.
Great place for an RCG to learn.
Dont join... You will get Diabetic at the early age....
Been at Intel 22 years since coming right of the grad school. It's been great for me, have earned a good living, but I think times have changed and staying at when any one company that long it's not as likely these days. So advice would be to make sure you're enjoying what you're doing and learning good skills that are marketable to other companies. The prospects for you will depend on where you are starting, but you are safe for a while as anew hire it and quite easy to move around to lateral roles to get into strong and growing groups. Good luck.
Stay for 2 or 3 years and get experience. Then move on with experience and you are now more valuable to the job market. This is no longer a company that can sustain a career.
It's a good place to start an Engineering Career. You can learn a lot as people will not see you as a threat. There are many decent Engineers who will share their knowledge with you. As for making a career there, don't fuss about it. Nobody can predict the future in the trch industry for more than 2 years.
Don't expect to have nights or weekends free from Intel assignments. You will often be asked at he end of a day to collect a bunch of data and have a presentation ready by the next morning for some useless manager. And by the way, you'll be doing the presentation.
To be honest, it will be tricky. There are a lot of things that only one person knew how to do, and sometimes that one person got laid off. I know of several in my department alone. And with the ERP lots of people with what we call "tribal knowledge" (undocumented info) will leave as well. That means a lot of trying to reinvent the wheel. But that is also an opportunity for new people to do things differently and even better.
Overall the stakes are higher than in the past. Do well and you will get promoted fast to fill the gaps, do poorly and you will be walked out in the next round of layoffs. So think of it as more bi-polar. The main downside of that is it will simply be more stressful.
One thing you can do is try to gravitate towards work that could translate to something meaningful outside the company, that way if you have to leave, you have something other companies want.
Yes there is turmoil now, but you can learn more at Intel than almost anywhere. Fresh out of school, I think joining Intel is an awesome opportunity. No one knows how long the ride will be, but that's true no matter where you go. And with a lean workforce, you will likely have many different opportunities. Others might not agree, but I say go for it.