This is a routine issue in the semiconductor industry. Payscales haven't keep up with software across that whole industry. The trade organizations are aware of this, but I haven't seen a lot of push to level the playing field. It's unfortunate, as there are lots of really fascinating problems to solve on the materials and integration side.

The industry trade organization did make a snazzy movie to try to attract young graduates into the industry.

https://yourewelcome.org/en/

I worked for a tenant in an complex that was mostly populated by semiconductor manufacturing and research people.

You could use the parking lots as a proxy for employee prosperity. The chip guys drove better cars than the students, but the government and other corporate people had better cars on average. The chip bigshots made bank though. The chip people would also have crunch periods where they worked crazy hours.

The workers making bank were the tradesmen building the facilities that housed tools.

So did Apple just sashay in and poach half of the best people?

Only thing I can add to this is I had an Uber driver in SF area who was a computer engineer for Intel and wasn't doing Uber as a fun aside to meet people...

Is that different at AMD?