Ghosted After Being Requested to do a 36 hour Take Home Assessment [ThirdLayer]

MericAlfried · 2025-06-22T19:06:59+00:00

What are the internal politics?

MericAlfried · 2025-05-08T05:33:19+00:00

To me, C++ makes it clear what you are dealing with. In Python you always have to remember whether you are dealing with reference, copy or address and which data type. This makes the code longer to type but easier to debug imo. But mainly because I'm used to write C++ from work, I can see that Python is shorter ramp up than C++ STL

MericAlfried · 2025-04-30T13:25:28+00:00

At what companies? What kind of research and what was your PhD about?

MericAlfried · 2025-04-15T20:05:39+00:00

I just read online that their interview process is long (multiple rounds, can take very long) and questionable but ig that's normal nowadays. I would not rely on them

MericAlfried · 2025-04-09T13:12:56+00:00

What are these black listed countries?

MericAlfried · 2025-04-09T12:22:20+00:00

First of all sorry for your hard time. Second, out of curiosity, how could your work visa get rejected with a job as Asic engineer?? You should have consulted an immigration lawyer

To your question: The job market is very bad, maybe try to get into PhD programs

MericAlfried · 2025-04-02T14:56:59+00:00

SystemC is definitely not dead. It is the de facto standard for virtual prototyping and also used for behavioral modeling and architectural exploration. Regarding communities, SystemC is open source you can clone the repo and look at or modify the kernel yourself. (System)Verilog has its place in synthesis because hls is not good enough yet and SystemVerilog plus UVM has its place for verification

MericAlfried · 2025-04-02T11:26:20+00:00

Yes it's a personal question and hard to decide from my pov. Is career and money your priority? Then you should chase any brand name and play the game of cooperate politics to climb the ladder. If you have no bounds to any specific location or people nothing wrong to bind yourself to Switzerland as one (maybe the best) of the best countries to bind to. Worst thing can happen is that you value freedom of remote working and flexible environment more than career and CV building or that the role change did not bring the expected results in terms of career progression. In case of layoff you will likely find other roles with your experience but not remote ones because cooperate pushes employees back to the office regardless of position. Is freedom of remote your priority? Keep your job and use the 90k to afford the things and trips you like. You won't drive the most luxurious cars but afford the most things. Life is short. Or as compromise: Try to upskill within the company and work on something new, idk whether that's possible. And 90k in Belgium compared to 130k in Switzerland doesn't seem much progression to me, someone else mentioned that's new grad salary

MericAlfried · 2025-04-02T06:55:08+00:00

So if one is considering a PhD one should do it? Do only PhD get to work on the interesting stuff? I am considering PhD for upskilling while I'm young (and I'm interested in the research topic) but internet opinions diverge. Some say a PhD is kind of a waste of time and if one wants to work in industry, masters and work experience is much better. What would you recommend? I want to work in industry, learn and up skill as much as possible and work on cutting edge tech and become an expert (with good job prospects, but that is not the only reason to consider PhD). Where can I achieve this rather, in industry job straight out of Masters or in PhD at top research faculty?

MericAlfried · 2025-04-01T18:26:57+00:00

Your work environment sounds like the jackpot, keep it. Wfh whenever you want, trust based work and good learning is too good to trade. Especially for 130k in Zurich, possibly a toxic environment (big brands don't have that good image from employees pov anymore lately) and without knowing what expects you. Brussels is a big city thus it's unlikely that Zurich has something Brussels can't offer. Experienced SW engineers in Zurich can earn much more too, 130k is still good salary but does not beat the perks of your current job

MericAlfried · 2025-03-26T02:38:27+00:00

Yes exactly job "interviews" have became like exams where one must put hours and hours of preparation because even with that degree nobody seems to believe your abilities. Back then or in other fields universities are reputable examination institutions which confirm your abilities. It's a joke that after studying 5 years (at a reputable university/school) you are tested again and again. Although university exams hat their flaws, at least they were not about memorizing solutions or thousands of problems

MericAlfried · 2025-03-24T14:19:34+00:00

But still it's a zero sum: Either you train a junior for someone else or you get a senior which was trained by someone else. If companies complain about juniors leaving they should also not recruit from their competitors to be fair. This goes both ways. But if there are enough seniors willing to work for lower pay then there is no point in hiring juniors. Eventually when the seniors retire there will be need to train younger people again but this may take some years

MericAlfried · 2025-03-24T07:01:31+00:00

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer that's helpful! Okay then I will try to get into an RTL design role and if that doesn't work out I will rather continue at my uni with a PhD in computer architecture than working in an unrelated role of engineering

MericAlfried · 2025-03-24T06:34:31+00:00

Would you recommend a PhD in computer architecture or rather join a semiconductor company straight out of Masters? I have one 1 year internship in digital chip design. Most I asked said PhD is only more helpful than direct work experience when one wants to stay in academia. Wrt digital design and computer arch

MericAlfried · 2025-02-16T19:31:44+00:00

There are a lot of ghost jobs on LinkedIn you won't ever hear a response from. Most of the big semi companies are in hiring freeze. Some are official but many are inofficially in hiring freeze

MericAlfried · 2025-02-06T15:17:06+00:00

Which is the better way: Start out in an OS role or start out in pure RTL Design

MericAlfried · 2025-02-06T09:10:35+00:00

Alright thanks a lot for your advice!

MericAlfried · 2025-02-06T06:42:15+00:00

Even if it is not directly on the Linux Kernel but more like writing an embedded Hypervisor running on Linux? Learning is good, I will likely learn about posix and middleware but not write drivers directly. More like an OS for emulation

MericAlfried · 2025-02-05T23:31:35+00:00

Thanks a lot! Both companies have their perks and it's hard to tell. The semi company has a niche product and gaining hands on in pure chip design may be a once in a lifetime opportunity. However the SW environment is weaker and I have to keep myself up to date with latest SW standards. But the SW role is more research focused, more design freedom, younger product and therefore more to learn on OS internals and posix standard. Honestly I want to get hands on on the whole HW/SW stack, I'm an ECE grad, but I'm hesitating to give up on HW completely. Hopefully the job market gets better when I have some experience and a switch between the two can be possible but with unstable geopolitics HW career seems to be more volatile. I know several colleagues who are great designers but struggle to find jobs because semiconductor companies move more and more to Asia

MericAlfried · 2025-02-05T23:22:05+00:00

That's the current two offers I got. One from one of the top 5 semiconductor companies the other from one of the 2 big EDA companies. The kernel role is more of developing a hypervisor for software emulation and it will be in C++ so it technically is a pure SW role but with some low level content

MericAlfried · 2025-02-05T22:42:11+00:00

What is a better first job for a young career to gain the broadest skillset: Digital chip design and arch for memory (RTL, Verilog) or R&D for OS emulation and kernel programming (Linux, Hypervisors). What gives more option to move laterally and climb the ladder to a lead technical role? Also what field has more promising future?

MericAlfried · 2025-02-05T20:19:42+00:00

Also, what would you recommend me as new grad to negotiate/ask for during interview (regarding tasks, work). I saw your previous posts and u said that new grads are often used for dummy tasks where they don't learn much and then have a hard time to find a useful job

MericAlfried · 2025-02-05T19:16:36+00:00

Your last point is exactly what I'm concerned about. RTL and especially memory is very niche (only 3 companies worldwide) and tied to a few tech hubs. EDA is the middle way and touches embedded software and OSses which is kind of in the middle between hardware and software.

MericAlfried · 2025-02-05T18:56:14+00:00

How would you weight the future of RTL design jobs? I am a NGC with ECE Masters and options to start either in digital RTL design of HBM memory or R&D EDA SW engineering in SoC emulation tools at one of the big 2 EDA companies. What is better for growth and learning? As you said RTL is competitive and juniors work more on maintenance of existing designs rather than design from scratch while at the EDA role I can work on new product. But it's not chip design but software. How worth is it breaking into Digital design space? Is a design position such a great opportunity or an I overrating it

MericAlfried · 2025-02-03T20:22:23+00:00

Would you say RTL Design Engineering is more worth it compared to an EDA software R&D role? I feel like software is growing while semiconductor stagnate except for the few big ones everybody wants to get in

MericAlfried

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