...and the best part? Because I don't work like a dog anymore, I have time to enjoy going to the gym or running during lunch. In a few months, I've shed 30 lbs, and haven't looked and felt as good since I graduated from college 15 years ago. And the best part is I can fit into all my old clothes from my college days.
Chip companies are going through consolidation and tough times. It's not just intel or qualcomm, it's everywhere, with the exception of maybe NXP which is doing fabulous.
My advice? Get out if you can, especially if you are in software. The worst thing you could do to yourself is being a good software engineer working for a chip company. You get paid like crap, treated like crap, and you're never going to be viewed as an asset, only a liability. Work for a software company if you are a software guy/gal. Because in those companies, it's the opposite. Hardware is a commodity that no one cares which vendor you use, and software is an asset.Also, it's a lot easier to have a bunch of software projects versus hardware projects. Just think about this. The cost of starting a software project is cheap these days. Compare that to the cost of a hardware project?
Hardware engineers are screwed in the short term. There's too many of them. Hardware engineering fate is similar to Analog designers when the world slowly transitioned to digital. Suddenly we had too many Analog engineers chasing after too few jobs, and that depressed wages and opportunities. Many Analog guys ended up getting out, reducing the supply of labor. Then, with fewer people working on it, when a company needed an Analog guy, there was none to be found, so they have to pay a lot for the limited resources. Hardware engineers are going to go through a similar fate. Until the supply dwindles, there are too many hardware engineers chasing after too few jobs. And until there's a shortage of Hardware engineers, wages/opportunities are going to be limited . Simple supply and demand.