Workload not sustainable in dry etch groups (process engineering)
Pros
The dry etch process groups hire 95% international fresh grads, if you fall in that category, you will form a tight camaraderie with this group - bonding over the large work load and varying levels of resentment to management (depending how much work you can take). Management has PhDs - if you have the same background it's easy to intellectually connect and communicate.
Cons
Specific to the dry etch process group - high workload and low levels of appreciation for it. Everyone works hard so the practice of overworking employees are normalized. A 6 month period of 80 hour weeks ends with a 11.95USD thank you lunch, if the project did not successful. This is 80 hours where I was working on equipments availability and schedule, with food and bathroom breaks as a second thought. 80 hours in front of you desk is NOT the same as 80 hours standing in a cleanroom, emerging only for meetings. The saddest thing about all this, is that the knowledge you gain is actually not very valuable. There are 10 "knobs" you can turn in process for dry etch, the entirety of the role is to come up with combinations of the knobs that etches the substrate to your specification. You do NOT learn about how your work fits in with the entire IC design, how logic chips work etc. You can learn about it on your own time.