Job Openings: Can EDA Predict the Future

This is a simple post with just two messages. First, EDA is hiring. All over the globe. Mentor Graphics lists over 200 openings, Cadence has almost 300 openings, and Synopsys has a staggering 900+ openings worldwide.

Of course, EDACafe’s own Mark Gilbert could have told you this. It wasn’t necessary to scour the websites of the Big Three in EDA to learn about the many jobs currently available in the industry, most for software developers, not surprisingly.

The second message in this post is about Russia. In May 2014 and again in August of that year, I wrote blogs about the impact of American-Russian relations on the EDA industry. At the time, that relationship was quite agitated.

Now, amidst the issues roiling about in Washington D.C., far from the least of those issues is again American-Russian relations. But this time it’s more about who said what to whom and when, and how such conversations might impact and/or predict the future between these two powerful nations.

What a confusing time for those who want to see into that future.

But there is another way to look at the situation: Examine the employment opportunities in EDA.

If you revisit the websites of the Big Three to figure out which companies are actually hiring in Russia, you’ll learn something interesting. Synopsys has 9 openings in St. Petersburg currently listed, and Mentor Graphics has 2 in Moscow. Cadence, however, has no openings in Russia at all, despite having almost 300 openings worldwide.

Why would that be? You would think with so many openings at Cadence, at least a few of them would be in Russia. Instead, Cadence is hiring in China, Japan, India, the U.K. and Brazil, and of course the U.S.

Clearly, Cadence is pursuing a different strategy with respect to doing business in Russia. While Synopsys and Mentor Graphics indicate a continuing willingness to build team there, Cadence is pulling back. And here’s a guess as to why.

Cadence Group Director for Export Compliance and Government Relations, Larry Disenhof, is a walking encyclopedia with regards to the complexities, nuances and vagaries of import/export control.

He, and therefore his employer, know better than anyone that if there should be a sudden change of direction with respect to Russia, if the relations should suddenly become (even more) chilly, sanctions might be imposed on any American company doing business there. So rather than be in a hiring mode in Moscow or St. Petersburg, Cadence is looking to other large, technically advanced countries to meet their software development needs.

So if you are interested in the interface between global business and the global politic, you might also be interested in following the hiring trends in EDA. It’s not a huge industry, but it certainly can serve as an indicator of what the future holds. And that future may or may not include Russia.

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Tags: Cadence, Larry Disenhof, Mark Gilbert, Mentor Graphics, Russia, Synopsys

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