Since you're working with production-impacting hardware and code, there are drawbacks: volumes are Huge and so when problems come, they're also Huge and Super-High Priority.
You're basically technical-electronics ER (Emergency Response), you need to be available on short notice to jump on critical issues, at any moment anything can happen and you could be ending up spending Christmas time debugging something, but it will still be considered "normal" and inside your duties.
This is an intense, high-stakes environment that requires significant commitment. Expect long hours and time-critical issues with serious consequences that need immediate resolution.
The role comes with constant pressing priorities, and tape-out periods can be extremely stressful.
You'll need to quickly connect, analyze data, diagnose problems, modify testing code, and push fixes to production, often under significant time pressure.
Work-life balance can be challenging, especially during critical periods.
If you value predictable hours or protected personal time, this may not be the right fit.
That said, if you thrive under pressure and want to work on mission-critical problems where your contributions have immediate, tangible impact, the intensity can be rewarding, and the impact is Huge, not many jobs have the same possibility to have such an impact, even though for management, it's considered as nothing out of the ordinary and basically all you efforts are inside your standard remuneration package.
