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Comment by gautamb0 | Hacker News Reader

My background is slightly higher-level than yours; CPU architecture. I have friends and colleagues with similar backgrounds, and the ones pulling in the most have either pivoted all but entirely to software, or have managed to find hardware roles within the big 4. They do exist. The latter get the best of both worlds, as they pay essentially the same as they do for software roles, and come with the rest of the usual perks. Banks are similar, but my observation which may or may not be completely accurate, is that they are pickier and narrower in scope.

I would be wary about getting a PhD in anything outside of computer science today, though. The roles are out there, but there are far fewer of them.

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Thank you for your answer. This is the kind of info I'm looking for.

Maybe you got my background wrong: I do not design ICs currently, I was wondering if I should. I do design boards (high speed digital and analog RF in the higher end) and do FPGA programming to make them work. CPU design is an area of interest, but way to niche for my current field of work to accommodate.

Which areas a PhD could leverage both computing and my hardware design experience? Also, any ideas of skills or tools set required for getting into one of the big 4s?

I don’t have a PhD. In my opinion, if you don’t have a decent idea about what you want to get yours in, you probably should be thinking twice about getting one at all. There’s a huge opportunity cost, and the job market will probably change in non-trivial ways by the time you’re done. Only do it if you’re certain you want to become an expert in something specific. Microsoft and Google in particular are doing a lot of work with FPGAs. (Though, admittedly, the most interesting of these are probably research positions where relevant PhD’s are the norm) Apple does the full stack when it comes to hardware, and I’d expect them to have plenty of analog people. The best route might be to tell the right story based on your past experience and pair it with relevant positions at the bigcos. How to get their attention is unfortunately a topic that literally plenty of books have been written on, and I’m as far from an expert at it as possible. :p

Thank you. I'm finishing my masters while working and thinking a lot if I should or not get a PhD. The tendency is not to.

Which are you calling the "Big 4"? I'd have said there were five; has one dropped below the others recently?

My understand is that, unlike the others, Netflix does not have any in-house hardware development

Now I'm even more confused. Since when is Netflix considered one of the tech giants - they're a one-product streaming service...?

To me the "Big 5" are Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon. I didn't realize there were different lists. What's yours? :-)

What did you think the ‘N’ in FAANG was exactly?

I've never seen that acronym before. It is hard for me to imagine any way in which Netflix would be more similar to the other four than Microsoft.

edit: perhaps this is a regional difference; are you in the Bay Area? I imagine that Microsoft has less of a presence there, and perhaps Netflix is a bigger deal down south than they appear to be here in Seattle.

I had the same doubt when I first read FAANG (some time ago), and reached the same conclusion: it's not about the importance or size of the company, it's about the job market in the Bay Area.

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