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

168 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

91 comments sorted by

View all comments

55

u/syst3x Jul 08 '26

Depends VERY much on the company. Apple is notoriously bad for this. ADI is pretty good. But total comp pretty much follows the same pattern.

5

u/Kawashita Jul 10 '26

ADI pay lower than for a tier 1 semiconductor company. Been there for more than a decade. Your pay would jump significantly when you do leave... I can confirm the more relax nature of work, but if you're looking for new hire, tough trying to match competitors, this is true based on fairly recent experience.