It's not really about quick cash. The truth is just that additional SWEs are right now more useful than additional fab engineers, in the US. It sucks to hear but it's true. There just aren't that many fab engineers necessary. Even TSMC employs a large part of SWE and IC designers, probably close to or more than process engineers.
Fab engineers in the US are fairly disposable because their existence isn't based on market needs but really as a hedge by the US to be independent. That's going to suck for you because TSMC isn't going to value you that much because you're not really business critical, you're just there to get government subsidies. In Taiwan it's another story and it's almost competitive with good SWE jobs.
Fab engineers in the US are fairly disposable because their existence isn't based on market needs but really as a hedge by the US to be independent. That's going to suck for you because TSMC isn't going to value you that much because you're not really business critical, you're just there to get government subsidies. In Taiwan it's another story and it's almost competitive with good SWE jobs.