Since I got back to Portland after the Sydney trip, I’ve been spending all my time at work, so I thought I’d tell you what the Intel is like.
First, Intel is big (~80,000 employees, ~15k or which are in Oregon). Its bigger than any computer company ever has been or is ever likely to be in Australia. They build the most important chips that go into most of your computers, and a whole lot of chips that go elsewhere (mobile phones, PDAs, microwaves, etc). It was founded by Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore (ever hear of Moore’s law?) when they got annoyed with Fairchild semiconductor and decided to start their own business in 1968.
Intel built the first microprocessor, but it was only 1983 or so when they really started focussing on those products. Up until that point, they’d concentrated on selling memory (both SRAM and DRAM).
Ok. Enough with the history - but the point in all this is that, if you make a difference at Intel, you make a difference on a global scale. That can’t be said of too many research jobs, and definitely not the academic kind. Therein lies one of the best things about working at this company. People who think the same way tend to end up here too.
The downside is that, being a slightly older computer company, Intel isn’t blessed with the kind of young mentality of Google and co. The workplace is horrible: cubicles as far as the eye can see. They’re so proud of _everyone_ at Intel having cubes. This, of course, means that I hear _everyone’s_ conversation. It carries for rows and rows. Also, there’s so much bureaucracy: every 12 months everyone seems to get re-organised. People actually work from 9:00 until 5:00 at this place, which is a dramatic change from other research companies that I’ve worked for.
I’ve been working in CTG, the corporate technology group. They’re Intel’s research arm, and look at what technologies could be in Intel’s products 5 or 10 years in the future.
Its been positive. The idea that my work could eventually end up in a product which nearly all of you use at least 8 hours a day is really exciting.
