Not true. You dont get RSU until you are grade 6. Other benefits (WiFi subsidy, meal subsidy, toll & mileage subsidy, car interest subsid etc) are miniscule compared to the higher salary that you would receive at other companies. You would be surprised to know that Intel currently has the lowest salary range for most grades among IC design companies in Penang. AMD / Lattice / Skyechip / Oppstar / Efinix / Synapse easily offer 20-30% some even 50% more pay for the same grade as They are all actively poaching from Intel.

Just do some basic math. You get 5.5k starting vs 4k starting. Are all those subsidies and benefit worth the extra RM1.5k monthly?

From a pure monetary perspective, go for smaller company.

In terms of learning and growth, I would say Intel is actually better for fresh grad just because you have access to more resources (Tons of training material, access to all 3 EDA big boys' tools Synopsys, Cadence and Siemens) and a lot of seniors to help you or network with. However, it will be up to you to make use of those resources yourself as within your team, you are likely to be more constrained within one domain / limited exposure to the entire workflow as you say. But that doesnt mean you can't explore the other domains. It would be something that you need to talk to your manager or plan your own time to learn from those resources I mention. If you have your own initiative, you can definitely explore or learn other domains at intel without pressure whereas at small company yes you may work on a broader spectrum of IC design workflow but that will also be part of your deliverables / commitment that needs to meet timeline.

I would say its different from one team to another. Some teams at Intel are high stress as well. Just that GTs are usually more shielded in the sense you are not officially accountable for project deliverables yet.

And yes another advantage of Intel is very flexible working arrangements / hybrid mode. But again this differs from one team/department to another. Some teams only go to office once a week (And goes back home right after lunch because their team meetings are in the morning). Some need to go 3 days a week.

Again as I have said, its your own initiative to learn. Just because your team or your task doesnt use it doesnt mean you cant learn

I cant say for sure whether joining Intel is better or joining small local company is better. The things I mentioned like hybrid mode or work arrangments if important to you, you may want to check with your hiring manager what is the expectation. But as a fresh grad I highly recommend going to the office.

Ayam Intel Grade 5 too. Got offers from A, L and O recently for Design Engineer 2 (Grade 5 equivalent). All over 7k. Intel fucking underpaying. If not for the fact I live in Alor Setar and only need to go office once every week or even once every two weeks, I would have jumped lel

7k is the benchmark for design engineer 2 level outside of Intel. Of course it also depends on how you do during technical interview and how bold are you in selling yourself. One thing I realized is Malaysian interviewers are more cincai. AMD has 2 stage interviews, first stage from local team. 2nd stage from China team. This is because the AMD team in Penang reports to China team who leads the design of Ryzen's IO die and IPs. The Malaysian interviewer usually just ask what you do and ask you elaborate from there. China interviewer will tend to drill down on technical details more.

@ipohps3

Yes AMD still have design team in China. Intel also still have design team in China. But obviously they don't handle critical compute IPs. China team is handling the Northbridge and Southbridge dies just like how Intel Malaysia handles the PCH die.

7k is with prior experience. The range of salaries between Intel and others in Penang are roughly as follows:

Intel GT - RM4k |Others fresh grad / design engineer 1 - RM5k - RM6k
Intel G3 - RM4.5k |Others fresh grad / design engineer 1 - RM5k - RM6k
Intel G5 - RM5k - RM6k |Others Design Engineer 2 - RM7k
Intel G6 - > RM7k ish |Others Sr Design Engineer - RM 8.5k - >9k ish

Note this is for Front End RTL Design / Verification work.

This post has been edited by Xflkekw: Jun 22 2024, 09:52 PM

Even startup in Malaysia don't do "ground breaking IP design". A lot of them are licensed from other IP vendors like Synopsys.

Our design ecosystem is still mainly focused on IOs related IP (Your PCIE, USB, SATA, Ethernet, JESD, Interlaken, FPGA fabric interconnect etc). That is Penang's expertise (Thanks to Intel). Even the design teams starting up at AMD and Lattice are focusing on IOs. You can even take a look at Skyechip's product, they dont actually design compute cores themselves. They are licensing Arm IPs for that.

Eh I would say Intel Malaysia does a lot more than just SoC integration and validation. We have IP design, verification, SoC design, integration and verification, Analog IPs, SoC structural design, Atom core design (very small team) and Atom core validation, Tools & Design Enablement & methodology team, compute tile structural design and firmware & software teams. There are probably more that I missed out and this is just for the Intel client product side not accounting for PSG / Altera teams.

In terms of RTL design workloads, I don't think your statement is entirely true. You can have the opportunity to make a lot of RTL changes or design some functionality from scratch too at Intel. Large IP teams like PCIE subsystem usually provide that opportunity. Even at other local /China startup you are mostly likely making design changes on IP licensed from other Vendors like Synopsys / Arm instead of designing it from the ground up yourself.