삼성전자 파운드리 부문의 성과급이 AI 메모리 반도체로 역대 최대 실적을 낸 SK하이닉스나 메모리 부문에 비해 현저히 낮아 실망한 직원들이 대거 이직을 준비하고 있습니다. 30명 팀원 중 대다수가 SK하이닉스에 원서를 넣는 등 현재 반도체 업계는 AI 붐을 겨냥한 고강도 인재 확보 전쟁이 한창입니다. 두 기업 간의 보상 격차가 다음 세대 AI 반도체 시장을 좌우할 핵심 인재 유출로 이어지는 중요한 사안입니다.
번역된 본문
삼성전자 반도체 부문 엔지니어인 Lee 씨는 교대 시간이 끝나면 퇴근한다. 그는 과거에 프로젝트에서 탁월한 성과를 내기 위해 야근도 마다하지 않고 더 오래 일했다. 하지만 최근에는 퇴근하자마자 곧장 집으로 향해 한국의 경쟁사인 SK하이닉스의 이력서를 작성하는 데 시간을 보내고 있으며, 동료들과 훌륭한 자기소개서를 쓰는 방법에 대한 팁을 공유하고 있다. 그의 상사조차도 그의 이직을 권장한다. "저희 팀장님은 저희 모두에게 SK하이닉스로 옮기라고 말씀하십니다." Lee 씨는 말한다. 그와 그의 동료들은 엔비디아의 AI 가속기에 탑재되는 고대역폭 메모리(HBM) 칩을 생산하며 기록적인 수익을 거둔 SK하이닉스가 직원들에게 지급할 47만 6,000달러의 보너스 소식에 사기가 크게 떨어졌다. 이 금액은 삼성전자 반도체 노동자들이 받을 보너스를 훌쩍 뛰어넘으며 대규모 이직 사태를 촉발하고 있다.
AI 붐이 과열되면서 반도체 거인들은 화려한 보너스, 공격적인 채용, 심지어 법원 가처럼 신청까지 동원해 치열한 인재 전쟁을 벌이고 있다. 이 전쟁에서 승리하는 쪽이 AI 붐의 핵심인 차세대 HBM 칩 시장을 장악하는 경쟁의 판도를 바꿀 수 있다. "저희 두 팀장을 제외하고 저희 팀원 30명 전체가 방금 SK하이닉스에 지원했습니다." Lee 씨는 SK하이닉스가 7월에 게시한 채용 공고를 언급하며 말했다. 삼성에서 3년 동안 일한 Lee 씨는 경쟁사의 신입 직무에도 지원했다. 삼성에서 8년 동안 일한 동료도 같은 직무에 지원했다. 둘 다 탈락했다. 하지만 그들은 더 경험이 많은 엔지니어를 구인하는 공고에 대해서는 면접 연락이 올 것이라는 희망을 품고 있다. 매사추세츠 공과대학교(MIT) 테크놀로지 리뷰와 대화한 삼성전자와 SK하이닉스의 모든 직원들은 고용주로부터 보복당할까 두려워 성씨나 가명으로만 신원을 밝히려 했다. 삼성전자는 논평을 거부했고, SK하이닉스는 논평 요청에 응답하지 않았다.
노동조합과의 장기적인 협상 끝에 삼성은 5월에 반도체 부문 영업이익의 10.5%를 10년 동안 매년 직원 보너스로 지급하기로 합의했다. 이는 주로 3년에 걸쳐 귀속되는 회사 주식으로 지급된다. 이 조치는 SK하이닉스가 작년에 영업이익의 10%를 직원들에게 지급하기로 합의한 이후에 나온 것이다. SK하이닉스의 올해 1인당 보너스는 47만 6,000달러로 주로 현금으로 지급된다. 하지만 삼성전자는 각 부문의 보너스를 해당 부서의 실적과 연동시킨다. HBM 칩을 생산하며 풍운을 만끽하고 있는 메모리 부문의 칩 노동자들은 올해 1인당 약 40만 달러의 보너스를 받는다. 하지만 Lee 씨처럼 테슬라와 구글이 설계한 논리 칩을 제조하고 현재 적자를 기록하고 있는 삼성전자 파운드리 부문에서 일하는 사람들은 약 13만 5,000달러의 보너스를 받는다. 직원들은 MIT 테크놀로지 리뷰에 삼성전자가 실적이 좋지 않은 부서에 많은 보너스를 줄 수 없다고 말했다고 전했다. Lee 씨는 수개월 동안 노동조합이 회사와 씨름하는 것을 지켜본 후 자신이 결국 받게 된 것에 실망했다고 말한다. "앞으로 삼성이 아무리 잘되더라도 그 혜택이 저에게까지는 미치지 않을 것 같습니다."
노동자들의 보너스 정체는 SK하이닉스를 갑자기 매력적으로 보이게 만들고 있다. 삼성 노조가 6월에 실시한 설문조사에 따르면, 파운드리 부문 직원의 81.5%와 반도체 부문 전체 직원의 거의 절반이 향후 2년 내에 다른 회사로 가고 싶다고 답했다. 4월, 삼성 노조 위원장 최승호 씨는 지난 4개월 동안 200명 이상의 노조원이 SK하이닉스로 떠났다고 밝혔다. 익명 직장 포럼인 블라인드에서는 불만을 품은 삼성전자 엔지니어들이 더 많은 보너스를 받기 위해 SK하이닉스로 이직하고 싶다고 입을 모아 토로한다.
수십 년 동안 SK하이닉스는 삼성의 그늘에 가려져 있었다. 과거 취업을 준비하는 대학의 엘리트 공학도들이 눈길을 주지 않았던, 더 작고 치열하게 경쟁하는 메모리 제조사였다. 하지만 2019년 삼성은 시장이 틈새 시장에 머물 것이라고 판단해 HBM 팀을 축소한 반면, SK하이닉스는 이 기술에 더 큰 투자를 단행했다. 그 후 AI 붐이 AI 칩에 방대한 데이터를 공급하는 HBM에 대한 수요를 폭발적으로 증가시켰다.
Lee, an engineer at Samsung’s semiconductor division, clocks out when his shift ends. He used to work longer hours, going the extra mile to excel at his projects. But lately, he’s been coming straight home to work on his job application for the chipmaker’s South Korean rival SK Hynix, sharing tips with his coworkers on how to draft a stellar personal statement. Even his boss encourages him to make the move. “My team lead tells us all to jump ship to SK Hynix,” says Lee. He and his coworkers are feeling demoralized by the $476,000 bonus that SK Hynix is set to pay its employees, flush with record profits from making the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips that power Nvidia’s AI accelerators. The figure dwarfs what chip workers at Samsung are set to receive and is sparking an exodus. As the AI boom heats up, the semiconductor titans are waging a fierce talent war with flashy bonuses, aggressive recruiting, and even a courtroom injunction. Who wins could tilt the race to dominate the next generation of the HBM chips at the heart of the AI boom. “Except for our two team leads, my entire team [of 30 people] just applied to SK Hynix,” Lee says, referring to a job posting the company published in July. Lee, who has worked at Samsung for three years, even applied for an entry-level position at its rival. A coworker, who has worked at Samsung for eight years, applied for the same one. They both got rejected. But they’re hopeful that they’ll get a callback for a posting seeking a more experienced engineer. All employees at Samsung and SK Hynix that MIT Technology Review spoke with asked to be identified by just their last name or a pseudonym because they feared retaliation from their employer. Samsung declined to comment, and SK Hynix did not respond to requests for comment. After prolonged negotiations with its labor union, Samsung struck a deal in May to pay out 10.5% of the semiconductor division’s operating profits to employees as bonuses annually for 10 years, mostly in company stock that vests over three years. The move came after SK Hynix agreed last year to pay out 10% of operating profits to employees, which translates to $476,000 per employee this year—mostly in cash. But at Samsung, each division’s bonus is tied to its own bottom line. Chip workers in its memory division, which is also reaping a windfall from making HBM chips, are getting paid a bonus of roughly $400,000 per employee this year. But those who, like Lee, work in Samsung’s foundry division, which manufactures logic chips that companies like Tesla and Google design and has been operating at a loss, are getting a bonus of roughly $135,000 . Employees told MIT Technology Review that Samsung said it can’t give as many bonuses to divisions that aren’t performing well. Lee, after watching the labor union wrestle with the company for months, says he has felt disappointed by what he ended up with: “Even if Samsung does well in the future, I don’t think any of it will trickle down to me.” The workers’ lagging bonuses are making SK Hynix suddenly look appealing. According to a survey by the Samsung labor union in June, 81.5% of employees in the company’s foundry division, and nearly half of employees in the semiconductor division as a whole, said they wanted to go to another company in the next two years. In April, Samsung labor union chief Choi Seung-ho said more than 200 members of the union had left for SK Hynix over the past four months. On Blind , an anonymous workplace forum, a chorus of disgruntled engineers at Samsung confess that they want to defect to SK Hynix for the bigger bonuses. For decades, SK Hynix lived in Samsung’s shadow. It was the smaller, scrappier memory maker that elite engineering students at universities looked past when applying for jobs. But in 2019, Samsung downsized its HBM team, betting the market would stay niche, while SK Hynix doubled down on the technology. Then the AI boom supercharged the demand for HBMs, which feed AI chips the enormous amounts of data they need at ultra-high speed, driving prices to unprecedented levels. SK Hynix now leads the global market for HBMs, while Samsung is playing catch-up. Both companies topped $1 trillion in market value in May, and SK Hynix briefly dethroned Samsung as South Korea’s most valuable company in June. Predicting that demand for memory chips will continue to surge , the semiconductor titans are making aggressive investments to expand their business. Last month, the companies unveiled plans to invest more than $2 trillion by 2040, including a semiconductor “mega-cluster” in Yongin, a city south of Seoul. To staff the expansion, SK Hynix added 2,152 employees in the first half of 2026 alone and aims to double its manufacturing capacity in five years. Samsung plans to hire 60,000 employees over the next five years, especially for its semiconductor division. Even so, the pipeline will fall short: South Korea’s semiconductor industry will need about 304,000 workers by 2031 and faces a shortage of roughly 54,000, according to the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association. Now the longtime rivals are showering workers with big bonuses to keep—and poach—talent. “[SK Hynix] seems to target Samsung engineers when hiring because it’s a rival,” says Baek, a manager at SK Hynix. “From what I heard internally, the big performance bonuses we got were aimed at luring away talent from our competitor.” Courts are starting to weigh in. In July, Samsung won an injunction barring two former chip workers from working at SK Hynix for 18 months, on the grounds that chips are a national core technology deserving protection. “With competition in the semiconductor industry fierce, it’s necessary to establish a fair market order,” the court ruled. The talent exodus threatens a crucial advantage that Samsung still holds in the HBM race. “Samsung is the only memory maker in the world that owns a foundry business,” says Park Jun-young, a semiconductor expert at the Industrial Anthropology Laboratory, a research institute, who worked at Samsung for a decade. With the latest generation of the technology, known as HBM4, the logic chip at the base of each memory stack must be manufactured with the kind of advanced process that only foundries run. Samsung can do this in-house, while SK Hynix outsources it to the Taiwanese foundry giant TSMC. “If Samsung keeps losing engineers in the foundry … the collaboration between memory division and foundry division could become difficult,” says Park. “SK Hynix, which used to have only a memory team and is now hiring foundry engineers, could do better research on HBMs.” Choi, an engineer who has worked at Samsung for seven years, says he was once a star on his team, getting glowing performance reviews from his managers. But lately, he and his coworkers have been busy applying for every SK Hynix job posting they see. “We tell each other when the next SK Hynix job posting is up,” he says. “There’s always more work to do beyond our basic duties. But there’s no point in doing it.” Deep Dive Artificial intelligence A startup claims it broke through a bottleneck that’s holding back LLMs Subquadratic has now shared more details about its new model. But some are still skeptical. By Will Douglas Heaven archive page Anthropic found a hidden space where Claude puzzles over concepts A new technique has let the company probe deeper than ever into the weird workings of an LLM. By Will Douglas Heaven archive page Claude Science is Anthropic’s newest flagship product The company is doubling down on AI for science. By Grace Huckins archive page Google DeepMind is worried about what happens when millions of agents start to interact The firm is calling for more scientists to study the risks of multi-agent systems. By Will Douglas Heaven archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Privacy Poli