Students Explore Career Opportunities in Semiconductors

March 22, 2024

“I want to tell you that you don’t have to be just one thing,” said Katie Eckermann ’03, MEng ’04, director of business development at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) at a networking event for students considering careers in hard technologies. “There is a huge wealth of different jobs and roles within the semiconductor industry.”

Eckermann was one of two keynote speakers at the Design the Solution conference, presented by the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) Women’s Leadership Initiative, and co-sponsored by MIT.nano. Following the speaking portion of the event, attendees were invited to meet with representatives from AMD, Analog Devices, Applied Materials, Arm, Cadence Design Systems, Cisco Systems, Intel, Marvell, Micron Technology, Samsung, Synopsys, and TSMC. This annual February event was one in a series organized by the GSA Women’s Leadership Initiative and hosted at universities across the country to highlight the global impact of a career in semiconductors and recruit more women into the hard-tech ecosystem.

Eckermann was joined by John Wuu ’96, MEng ’97, senior fellow design engineer at AMD. Together, the two highlighted some of the key trends and most significant challenges of the semiconductor industry, as well as shared their career paths and advice.