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ToggleTerafab, owned by Elon Musk , is a "super vertically integrated semiconductor factory" jointly built by Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI. In order to meet the future manpower needs of chip production at the Texas plant, it has officially started poaching talent from around the world.
Tesla has specifically targeted Taiwan for recruitment, posting job openings for nine process engineers on its official website. The list precisely matches TSMC's core technological strengths, covering almost the entire talent needs of an advanced process, from CMP to lithography, from thin film to advanced packaging.
9. Are they poaching employees from TSMC to fill vacancies?
All of Terafab's job openings in Taiwan are listed as "Senior," requiring a minimum of 5 years of advanced process technology experience, with some positions requiring over 10 years, and explicitly stating the need for hands-on experience with processes below 7nm or even 2nm. The complete list is as follows:
- Senior Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) Process Engineer
- Senior Electroplating Process Engineer
- Senior Thin Film-Metal Process Engineer
- Senior Thin Film Process Engineer
- Senior Dry Etching Process Engineer
- Senior Wet Etching Process Engineer
- Senior Microfilm Process Engineer
- Senior Yield and Measurement Engineer
- Senior Process Integration Engineer
One of the job openings explicitly requires familiarity with CoWoS and SoIC advanced packaging technologies, both of which are proprietary technologies developed under the leadership of TSMC.
The Terafab project covers logic chips, memory, advanced packaging, testing, and photomasks. The entire chain requires manpower, and TSMC happens to be the only manufacturer that has mass-produced this entire chain.
Hundreds of resumes flooded in within 2 weeks
Salary is Terafab's most direct weapon. According to reports, Terafab Taiwan is offering annual salaries of NT$7-8 million, and has received over 100 resumes within two weeks of opening these positions. In comparison, TSMC's salary structure is:
- Starting salary for new master's degree holders in 2026: NT$2.2 million
- Manufacturing engineer: NT$1.31-2.77 million
- Senior Hardware Engineer (Level 31-35): NT$1.63 million - NT$7.23 million, with most medians falling between NT$3 million and NT$4 million.
- Other allowances and bonuses will be calculated separately (potentially increasing the base salary by 0.8-3 times).
Compared to the typical NT$3-4 million range for senior engineers at TSMC, Terafab's NT$7-8 million range is about 2 to 2.5 times higher; compared to the median for manufacturing engineers, the gap widens to nearly 3 times.
Taiwan is also poaching talent from Samsung's HBM and 2nm processes in South Korea. In comparison, many reports describe the offers as too tempting, prompting questions about whether TSMC is worried about retaining its core talent.
Wei Zhejia: There are no shortcuts
TSMC Chairman and President C.C. Wei responded to Terafab's poaching attempt by saying, "We will not underestimate our competitors, but there are no shortcuts in the industry. It takes 2-3 years to build a new wafer fab." He was referring to the construction time, but talent may leave beforehand.
Terafab's project scale is the blueprint that Musk officially announced at the Seaholm Historic Power Plant in Austin on March 21. It involves an investment of $200-250 billion, is located in the Giga Texas North Campus, and aims to produce 1 TW AI computing power annually, with 80% output through orbital satellites.
Bernstein analysts roughly estimate the full scale could reach $5 trillion. Intel announced its entry on April 7th, and currently only TSMC, Samsung, and Intel have the capacity to mass-produce processes below 5nm, so Terafab is poaching talent from all three.
Hsieh Chin-ho commented on Intel joining Terafab: "Intel has seen the taillights." On the other hand, TSMC also announced an expansion plan to hire 8,000 people this year. It has a lot of capital to earn NT$1.1 trillion in Q1, but financial space and flexibility in human resources and salaries are two different things.
Before robots entered the chip production line, the labor market for advanced process technology talent was growing. For senior engineers, the choice between TSMC salaries and US factory salaries was simply a matter of whether or not they wanted to live in the United States.
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