TSMC

They pay much more than other companies for new college grads. The building is pretty nice, and Phoenix is a cool place to live.

It's honestly hard to describe how far the heads of leadership here must be stuck up their own butts enjoying the smell, but I will try.

The skills new college grads/brand new engineers learn here are not transferable to the rest of the industry or other industries. There are so many manual tasks that are completely trivial, and managers force you to do them just to exert control. Often, those who succeed here are just those who put in hours doing tedious manual operations on outdated systems that are error-ridden.

My training consisted of someone basically just saying, "Do this" and "Don't ask questions," not explaining why or actually helping to accommodate different learning styles. Many projects or experiments that succeed, TSMC just won't even bother actually understanding why; they just mark it in their brain and create pseudo-science to support their BS models. I honestly believe I became stupider after my "training."

God forbid you challenge a manager on a concept, thus essentially attacking their manhood when they don't understand a concept. Why hire an expert in the field who just came out of school studying this topic from a top university, then ignore them because you have "data that says otherwise" when half the data here is cherry-picked to support a BS model some manager got behind in the first place? People will cherry-pick data just to get out of doing tasks, and honestly, it just feels wrong the way "data analysis" is treated here as a whole. Lots of the questionable ethics I encounter on a weekly basis make me feel that this shady, gorilla-esque chest-beating culture is permeated from the top down.

More, they do not believe in work-life balance, and promotions are largely based on how hard you suck up to your superiors. You are encouraged to work late to earn respect and are not fairly judged on your actual contribution. There is no acceptance of feedback from lower ranks because you don't understand the "TSMC way," which leads to experienced engineers who know better looking for their earliest possible escape.

In addition, HR has been known to stretch the truth throughout the recruiting process. At least now they don't put "hybrid" in job postings because you are expected to be onsite 10 hours a day if you want to get a middle-of-the-road job rating. There is no flexibility for outside of work life unless you hit on the 1/50 lottery of having a somewhat decent boss. Honestly, it also feels every day now all the engineers worth their salt who are not stuck trying to earn a visa are leaving for better opportunities, leaving those of us who stuck around enjoying our retention bonuses but wondering if it's even worth the money to put up with this train derailment that is about to collide into a nuclear facility.

Try to develop your younger employees, as we are the most important resource after the Taiwanese return to Taiwan. If you want leaders left after you go back, you need to actually put time into training leaders, not just overload us with garbage work and keep us busy just to look busy.

Also, there needs to be a re-assessment of the job grading system. Taiwanese engineers should be getting paid more for what they bring to the table if we are going to run them into the ground. They never complain about the BS they must put up with.