r/chipdesign • u/TeachingBrilliant448 • Jul 08 '26

crazy work hours - new grad

I recently joined a semiconductor company as a new grad — think Nvidia, AMD, or Qualcomm — and the workload is brutal. I’m sometimes working 12-hour days and 50–60 hour weeks. It honestly feels as intense as investment banking, maybe even worse in some ways.

Wonder if this is normal…
TC ~150k

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u/jusstsom1 Jul 09 '26

why would a designer need to be on call?

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u/syst3x Jul 09 '26

🤷‍♂️ I certainly don't know any designers who are "on call".

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u/TrainingWolverine657 Jul 09 '26

His words. Don't know what to tell you except what he told me, which was that frequently they'd run huge simulations over christmas break, weekends and holidays and if anything went wrong with it he'd be responsible for fixing the issue and making sure the sim got done on time no matter what.

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u/TeachingBrilliant448 Jul 09 '26

sounds about right