
Ask HN: Great hardware companies? - luu
Every week I see a blog post about how awesome the work environment and people at Google are, and I hear similar stories about certain groups at places like MS and amazon; every time a “who’s hiring” post comes up, we get a list of tens of small software companies that sound amazing. But what about hardware companies?<p>I’ve been interviewing at hardware companies, and when I ask employees about finding a place that’s full of brilliant people, good management, etc., the only people who say their own company fits that description are people who have only worked at one place since graduating[1]. I don’t think they’re being disingenuous, but they don’t have much to compare against. Folks with more experience tell me how great Cray, DEC, Xilinx before Moshe Gavrielov, Bell Labs, etc., were, but all of those places are defunct, or shells of their former selves. There are some well known large hardware companies that regularly make Forbes’s best places to work list, but the general reputation that those companies have in industry is not very good, and the people I know that work at those places are, for the most part, unhappy with their jobs. Great hardware companies must exist. Where are they, and how do I find them?<p>A related question is: are there any hardware companies that aggressively screen their applicants? I’ve interviewed with all of the major companies and a lot of smaller companies. Without exception, the on-site interview at hardware companies has been easier than the phone screen at software places like Google or Facebook. Having a strict hiring process isn’t a sufficient condition for getting great employees, but it’s probably at least weakly correlated. So how come all of the major players have such a loose hiring screen?<p>[1] I found one exception when I was searching for jobs when I graduated, and I took a position there. The problem is that I took a verification (i.e., test) position. Unlike at (some) software companies, hardware verification folks are treated as first class citizens, and the work is really interesting, but I want to try doing design (i.e., development) and I’ve accumulated enough verification experience that I’ll be typecast as a verification engineer for my career if I don’t make a change soon. Unfortunately, the aforementioned company only hires experienced designers to do design, so I’m stuck choosing between closing off one career path and having great co-workers in a work environment that has all the plusses that I hear Google has, and breaking out of verification.
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jimmyjim
It's unfortunate that you're not getting many responses, I personally would
have loved to see what the HN crowd would have had to say here.

I think it's probably because you posted this question on a Saturday -- I hope
you try again maybe on a Thursday, I've a hunch the question will do better
then

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jimmyjim
Just out of curiosity, you've your degree in CE, EE, or what..?

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luu
Math/CE undergrad, EE MS.

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izend
Samsung.

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luu
Why? What makes it a great place to work?

Which jobs roles and groups are good? The fab engineers I know at Samsung
aren't very happy with their jobs, and they have terrible reviews on
glassdoor.

