Life of a Test Development Engineer
Pros
- high starting salary for a fresh graduate - has competitive benefits: meal allowance, shuttle, 13.5 month pay, variable bonus, car/house loan subsidy, educational assistance, RSU(if you're lucky to be given) - great place to start if pursuing a career in semiconductor
Cons
- LOW annual salary increase, sometimes lesser than inflation (which is unusually common for semiconductor companies in the PH) - shortage of ATE testers resulting to night shift and weekend work schedule. sometimes you will be asked to continue working instead of taking lunch due to very limited tester allocation - if you are newest member of the team, chances are you will be the one to take the night shift, weekend schedule, and support the production on HOLIDAYS - politics is very evident. if the upper management doesn't know you, you will never be promoted. promotion is based on 60% popularity 40% performance - you rarely have any say where your career will be heading. internal mobility is decided by the management, never by the engineer - there is a lot of leg work for the engineer: pushing handler and other heavy equipment, repairing/troubleshooting the equipment, withdrawing units boards and spare parts, shipping units, and other things that can be assigned to a operator/technician but sadly they are part of the responsibilities of an engineer
