Recruitment in Bitran

The 35-year-old phenomenon is very common in the Internet industry. After the age of 35, there is a phenomenon that the upward passage is blocked and there is no way to quit.

After the age of 35, the technical level of programmers has gradually improved, but because of the old and the young, the family is entangled, and there is not as much energy as young people, and they often work overtime and stay up late. Therefore, the competitiveness of the workplace does not rise but falls. Once you can't meet the company's layoffs, you will be passive. At the same time, many companies like to ask people under the age of 35 when recruiting. This is the phenomenon of 35 years old.

In the last year or two, Internet companies are laying off employees. Layoffs in many companies and even entire departments. For example, the teaching and training industry, which was still very popular a few years ago, has now attracted many Internet companies. But suddenly the wind changed, and large and small companies began to lay off a large number of employees.

What kind of people are most affected at this time? This is a job whose skills are closely related to industries and companies, and skills are not transferable.

The 35-year-old phenomenon is also related to whether the industry is booming. If the industry is booming, such as the current IC industry, there is a shortage of talents, and the phenomenon of 35 years old is not obvious. At the same time, we should also consider whether the industry boom also has its periodicity. Alternating between hot and cold is a normal phenomenon in the industry. So, don't expect the industry to be so hot forever.

We can assume that when you are 35 or middle-aged, you may be the head of a team. Suddenly, the company announced that the product line where the team was located was no longer made because of market factors.

At this time, the company offers two options. Go to another group. Or get a compensation and find another way out.

So you chose another group. There is a great possibility that the leaders of other groups are about your age. He thinks you were originally on his level. When I went to see him, he was not confident or embarrassed to let you work for him, so he refused. So you have to go to the talent market. It turns out that the reason why the company cut this direction is because the whole industry in this direction is at a low tide and the market demand is not great. At this time, your skills are deeply tied to an industry, and it is difficult to find a corresponding job without understanding other aspects. This phenomenon may be more common in companies with multiple different product lines.

The above hypothetical situation is very obvious to many programmers. In particular, new programming languages are constantly emerging. The language that many old programmers are good at may be out of date for many companies. Of course, this phenomenon also exists in the IC industry. It may be that you are good at making expansion chips, but bitcoin suddenly has no demand. Your skills are worthless. Therefore, it is recommended not to limit your skills to a specific industry.

Speaking of Bitcoin, I remember that bit continental, the industry leader, once recruited a lot of people, and then began to lay off employees only two months later. Many people were laid off before their internship. It can be seen that the changes in this industry are drastic. Recently, I heard that Bitterland started to do AI. However, I believe that the AI industry is also a very specific industry, which may have a bright future, but it may also be muddy and need to be vigilant.

In digital chip design, DFT, synthesis and back-end skills are very portable. The performance of portability is that you can apply for GPU company, IOT company, AI company and even expand the company.

If it is the front end, you may need to know a certain direction. From the point of view of portability, it's a little worse. However, due to the same language, it is still much better than the Internet industry.

From the perspective of knowledge timeliness, IC engineers also have great advantages. Verilog language has been used for decades, and it is still the mainstream. Although many high-level HDL have come out, there are still many problems in actual use. There is also the scripting language used in the back-end process. Thanks to the strong recommendation of EDA company, tcl is and will be the mainstream in the future. Perl seems to be more popular than python, but Perl still has its uses.

The technology of chip design industry is constantly updated, but the old knowledge has been applied. Now mature technology still accounts for more market share. If you have worked in the back end for more than ten years, I even think that even if you leave the industry for a few years and become familiar with it in a short time, you can regain your skills and still bring new people and form a team.

Let's talk about simulation again. Simulation design mainly interacts with the outside world, and the direction of simulation is much less than that of numbers. As long as you master ADC, PLL and various high-speed interfaces, you can lead the world. Some people have even been studying one direction. For example, if ADC is done well, this skill is enough to eat and drink. Of course, some protocols in the simulation design may be updated, the accuracy requirements are different, and the required speed may be increased. For example, ddr2 is upgraded to ddr3, and then there are ddr4 and ddr5. But with ddr5, it doesn't mean that ddr3 won't be used.

Everything has two sides. Knowledge is long-term, skills are portable, and there is also a bad side, that is, strong substitutability. It's simple. If I can easily find a young man to do a good job, why should I find an expensive and angry middle-aged man? This is our request. Is to try to do those important jobs that have certain decision-making power at work. Because the cost of chip streaming is very high, especially advanced technology. No one wants to risk the failure of the film and let young people do it. Even if the company doesn't find a very experienced person to make a decision, please invite an experienced friend to audit it. This also shows the high cost of the chip industry, and also has a certain mitigation effect on the 35-year-old phenomenon.

After reading this article, do you feel lucky to enter the chip industry? Pay the internet, but have a longer career than the internet? But in the end, I want to give you a suggestion. You are walking on thin ice in peacetime.