S02-E04 Sam is a technician at Intel

Sam works as a manufacturing technician at Intel outside Phoenix, AZ. Sam went to a community college and graduated with a 2-year degree. Then he got a job at Intel. Hear Sam’s story in this episode.

The Talking Technicians podcast is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program.

Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation.

Join the conversation. If you are a working technician or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org.

Links from the show:

The Micro Nano Technology Education Center (MNT-EC): https://micronanoeducation.org/

Jobs and links for Students at Intel:

https://jobs.intel.com/page/show/global-student-centers

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/education/highered/higher-ed-overview.html

Episode Web Page: https://micronanoeducation.org/students-parents/talking-technicians-podcast/

Transcript

Peter Kazarinoff  0:02  
From MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center. This is Talking Technicians, the podcast about technicians: who they are, what they do and where they come from. I'm your host, Peter Kazarinoff. I teach technicians and engineers at Portland Community College. In each episode, you'll meet a working technician and hear their story. That means real interviews with real technicians about real jobs. At the end of each episode, you'll hear actions you can take if you want to be a technician, too.

In this episode, you'll meet Sam. Sam works at Intel in Chandler, Arizona, outside Phoenix. Sam, welcome to Talking Technicians.

Sam  0:49  
Thanks, Peter. Great to be here.

Peter Kazarinoff  0:51  
Tell me about yourself. You live in - outside the Phoenix area. How long have you been there for?

Sam  0:58  
I've lived in Phoenix for most of my most of my life. I was  originally from Chicago, Illinois, moved here when I was a kid. But yeah, I've lived in Arizona for gosh, almost 20 years now.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:10  
And Intel is in Chandler. Where do you live relative to that?

Sam  1:15  
I live in kind of a weird area. It's like five minutes down the street. But it is technically in Phoenix, just the way that the city lines kind of delineate.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:24  
And is there anyone else in your household?

Sam  1:27  
I live with one of my roommates and he actually works at Intel as well.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:30  
Do you commute together or ever work in the same shifts?

Sam  1:34  
Yeah, yeah, we work on the same shift, we actually work in the same area as well. So it worked out pretty well that way.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:40  
Well then tell me a little bit more about where you work. What's your job title? And what do you do day-to-day there?

Sam  1:47  
So in Intel, we have a division called ATD, which is Assembly Technology Development. So we focus upon bonding processor die to substrates, which basically is the way that your computer chips all work out from everything from the radios and your phone to the most advanced processors in the world, some in supercomputers. My job title is an engineering technician though on the job, we refer to ourselves and to each other as MTE's. So Maintenance Technicians for Equipment. Day to day my job responsibilities really conduct consists of performing troubleshooting, preventative maintenance, corrective maintenance and repairs for the manufacturing equipment.

Peter Kazarinoff  2:31  
Do you work in shifts? Or do you have a regular nine-to-five kind of job?

Sam  2:37  
I have a regular schedule. My schedule is usually I work on the back end of the week, so Wednesday to Saturday 12-hour shifts, so 6pm to 6am.

Peter Kazarinoff  2:47  
And what kind of benefits come with working at Intel?

Sam  2:51  
Intel has some fantastic benefits. Everything from great base pay to quarterly and annual bonuses. We have wellness and health benefits, on campus benefits like health center, health services, dental vision on campus as well.

Peter Kazarinoff  3:11  
So it sounds like they want to keep you around.

Sam  3:13  
Oh, yeah.

Peter Kazarinoff  3:13  
Are there any opportunities for professional growth?

Sam  3:17  
That is one of the biggest things at Intel that they preach and practice every single day is education and career - career growth. I mean that the joke used to be welcome to Intel. Welcome to your next six jobs.

Peter Kazarinoff  3:32  
And have you trained any other technicians? What is kind of that role right now?

Sam  3:40  
That's actually one of my roles right now in my team is a sort of an ad-hoc trainer for new hires. I'm fairly well versed with the basics of our of our responsibility as engineering technicians. So my manager was like, hey, you know, we got these new guys coming in. Would you come be comfortable training these guys? Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

Peter Kazarinoff  4:02  
Do you remember what it felt like your first day at work Intel? How did it feel walking into Intel for the first time?

Sam  4:10  
Honestly, nerve racking. I had never done anything like it before. You know, going in and working on these million dollar machines, turning wrenches, knowing that you know, if you don't tighten the bolt the right way or if you change this parameter on a tool incorrectly, you can cause the tool or you know, millions of dollars a product to be bad. You know, it's nerve wracking, but it's at the same time I was really excited because I saw a great opportunity to learn every single day.

Peter Kazarinoff  4:47  
And how do you feel now compared to that first day at work?

Sam  4:52  
Well, a heck of a lot more confident for sure. What is it really has panned out to be a fantastica fantastic career for me so far. And I look forward to the next 10 years, 15 years, 20 years? Who knows?

Peter Kazarinoff  5:08  
So how did you get into Intel? What was your work experience your education experience before you started as a technician there?

Sam  5:16  
So as far as work goes, before I started at Intel, I worked in a variety of pretty dead end jobs, a lot of retail, a lot of contract work. And eventually, I kind of came to that realization where it's like, hey, something's gotta give, I got to do something. I'm gonna go back to school, get my degree. And I did two years at Rio Salado College, which is a local community college here in the Phoenix area on their, at the time, brand new nanotechnology program. My dad had worked at Intel for something like 10-15 years at that point. So he's like, hey, you know, this, this program sounds great. should try it. So I went for dived in headfirst, and came out two years later with a degree and a bunch of new friends and started working at Intel.

Peter Kazarinoff  6:03  
What was the hardest part of that nanotechnology program at Rio Salado Community College?

Sam  6:09  
I will definitely say that the hardest part for me was staying focused on the light at the end of the tunnel. Because there will be those times where you're doing 18 credit hours, and it's your on your eighth hour of homework for the day. And it's like, man, what the heck am I doing? You know, this is dumb, I should just go back to work. But it - it really came down to staying trying to stay laser focused on that, that, like that, that degree the goal of getting the degree and getting the job at the end.

Peter Kazarinoff  6:44  
What were some of the things that you learned in community college that you know, use day to day as a technician?

Sam  6:51  
So the thing with this, the program that I did at Rio Salado was really cool, because most of our nanotechnology curriculum actually comes from the semiconductor manufacturing industry. So there was a lot of it, where you're learning about, say, photo lithography. And that's something that we use every single day, we have tools that are millions of dollars that are as big as a big as a room that use that exact technology every single day. So I was able to go in on my first day, and look at this tool and recognize what each step that this tool was doing. Without any experience on that tool set prior, just from what I learned in school.

Peter Kazarinoff  7:30  
And what's something unexpected, when you started working as a technician, that you didn't know about before you started?

Sam  7:37  
I would say that the biggest thing that I wasn't expecting is how, and I don't know if it's the same way at the labs, or if it's just an Intel thing, or if even it's just a factory work thing, where it's you're mentally on all the time, everybody is expected to be part of the problem solving process, even if they're not problems that are acute problems, where you have to, hey, I need to fix this problem before I can continue processing. But bigger problems, like, you know, why are we getting poor yield on this particular product kind of thing? Everybody's expected to be responsible for problem solving.

Peter Kazarinoff  8:13  
Do you work alone at Intel? Or do you work in a team?

Sam  8:17  
I'm a little bit of both. I mean, there are some times where if we're doing a more intensive repair on a - on a tool set, then we may have two, three, four people working on it just because of the - the physical workload or if it's a real head scratcher of a problem or something like that, where you need to collaborate with the more senior guys or from guys from the vendors or for some - from someone like that. But there's a lot of times where it's like, oh, you know, 10-minute fix, I'll go over there and fix it myself. 

Peter Kazarinoff  8:47  
How do you communicate with engineers, scientists or other technicians?

Sam  8:52  
A lot of email, a lot of email. But at the same time, we also use meetings through Teams. We used to use Zoom every now and then. But we transition mostly to using Skype for Business and using Teams. But yeah, a lot of email, a lot of phone calls. Not as much face to face nowadays in these COVID. But I'm slowly going back to that.

Peter Kazarinoff  9:15  
How did your life change when you became a technician? What's different now compared to when you were a student in community college?

Sam  9:23  
I will definitely say that making the step to being a proper technician was a huge step in as far as quality of life overall. Because I went from not making a whole lot of money to making a whole lot more money than I was making. And aside from that was also a big step for me mentally because I went from going to school and learning because I had to to get the degree to going to work and learning every day because I'm interested in what I do.

Peter Kazarinoff  9:51  
Are you willing to share how much introductory technicians make it into?

Sam  9:56  
Personally I'm not I'm not at merc, and not at liberty, to the discuss how much I make. But typically, just from what I've learned from other technicians, and what I've learned just from looking at places like Glassdoor, an entry level technician at Intel can expect to make something in the area of 45 to $50,000 a year base pay. Plus your extra compensation for things like working night shifts, working press work week, factory incentives, things like that. In addition, we also get quarterly and annual bonuses, as well as stock options every year. 

Peter Kazarinoff  10:30  
So what advice would you give to current students or people want to transition their career and work in your industry?

Sam  10:37  
Um, honestly, the biggest piece of advice I would say is, do whatever you got to do to get through school. Stay laser focused, find a goal, find something that - find the carrot to dangle in front of your face and say, Hey, I need to stay focused on the carrot.

Peter Kazarinoff  10:52  
And do you have a final call to action for students or people who want to transition their careers and work as a technician like you?

Sam  10:59  
I will say, never, ever pass up on an opportunity to learn something new in the semiconductor industry and, and science in general is an industry that hugely greatly rewards learners. You know, the people with a passion for learning the people who go in every day and they're like, What am I going to learn new today? What's new today? 

Peter Kazarinoff  11:20  
Sam, thank you so much for being on Talking Technicians.

Sam  11:24  
It's been a pleasure.

Peter Kazarinoff  11:25  
Please keep in touch.

Sam  11:26  
Absolutely.

Peter Kazarinoff  11:32  
Talking technicians is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program. Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation. Join the conversation. If you are working technician or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talking technicians.org We're always looking out for great guests to share more stories with you.