Samsung Engineers Flee to SK Hynix as AI Chip Bonus Gap Widens

A semiconductor engineer identified only as Lee used to put in extra hours at Samsung's chip division. These days, he heads straight home after his shift to polish his job application for rival SK Hynix, swapping personal-statement tips with colleagues. Even his team lead is urging the move.

Lee is not alone. According to him, all but two team leads in his 30-person group applied to SK Hynix after the company published a job listing in July. Lee, who has spent three years at Samsung, even applied for an entry-level position, as did a coworker with eight years of experience. Both were rejected, but they remain hopeful about a posting seeking a more experienced engineer.

Across Samsung's semiconductor workforce, engineers are growing demoralized as SK Hynix prepares to pay its employees an average bonus of $476,000 this year—fueled by record profits from the high-bandwidth memory chips that power Nvidia's AI accelerators. The figure far exceeds what many Samsung workers will receive, and it is driving a wave of defections that could reshape the global race for next-generation AI memory. Samsung declined to comment, and SK Hynix did not respond to requests for comment.

A Bonus Gap That Sparked an Exodus

After months of negotiations with its labor union, Samsung reached an agreement in May to distribute 10.5% of its semiconductor division's operating profits to employees as bonuses annually for a decade, primarily in company stock that vests over three years. SK Hynix had agreed the previous year to pay out 10% of operating profits to employees, translating to roughly $476,000 per employee this year—mostly in cash.

At Samsung, however, each division's bonus is tied to its own financial performance. Workers in the memory division, which is also benefiting from HBM chip demand, are set to receive approximately $400,000 per employee. But engineers in the foundry division, which manufactures logic chips for clients like Tesla and Google and has been operating at a loss, are getting about $135,000.

Employees told MIT Technology Review that Samsung has maintained it cannot extend larger bonuses to underperforming divisions. Lee, who watched the union negotiate with the company for months, expressed disappointment with the outcome, saying that even if Samsung performs well in the future, he does not believe the benefits will reach him.

The disparity is having a measurable effect. A June survey by the Samsung labor union found that 81.5% of foundry division employees and nearly half of all semiconductor division workers wanted to leave for another company within two years. In April, union chief Choi Seung-ho reported that more than 200 union members had departed for SK Hynix over the preceding four months. On Blind, an anonymous workplace forum, Samsung engineers routinely confess their desire to defect.

How SK Hynix Overtook Its Former Rival

For years, SK Hynix operated in Samsung's shadow as the smaller, less prestigious memory chipmaker that top engineering students tended to overlook. That dynamic shifted in 2019, when Samsung scaled back its HBM team, betting the market would remain niche. SK Hynix went the opposite direction, doubling down on the technology just before the AI boom sent demand for HBM chips soaring.

High-bandwidth memory chips feed AI accelerators the massive data streams they require at ultra-high speeds, and prices have climbed to unprecedented levels. SK Hynix now leads the global HBM market while Samsung scrambles to catch up. Both companies surpassed $1 trillion in market value in May, and SK Hynix briefly overtook Samsung as South Korea's most valuable company in June.

SK Hynix managers say the generous bonuses are no accident. Baek, a manager at the company, noted that SK Hynix appears to target Samsung engineers when hiring and that the large performance bonuses were designed to lure talent away from its competitor.

Courts, Investments, and a Looming Labor Shortage

The talent battle has now reached the courtroom. In July, Samsung secured an injunction barring two former chip workers from joining SK Hynix for 18 months. The court ruled that chips constitute a national core technology deserving protection and that fair market order must be established amid fierce industry competition.

Both companies are pouring unprecedented sums into expansion. Last month, they unveiled plans to invest more than $2 trillion by 2040, including a semiconductor mega-cluster in Yongin, south of Seoul. SK Hynix added 2,152 employees in the first half of 2026 alone and aims to double its manufacturing capacity within five years. Samsung plans to hire 60,000 employees over the next five years, with particular emphasis on its semiconductor division.

Even these efforts may not be enough. The Korea Semiconductor Industry Association projects that the country's chip industry will need approximately 304,000 workers by 2031 but faces a shortage of roughly 54,000.

What the Talent Drain Means for the HBM Race

The exodus threatens a critical advantage Samsung still holds in the HBM competition. Park Jun-young, a semiconductor expert at the Industrial Anthropology Laboratory who spent a decade at Samsung, notes that Samsung is the only memory maker in the world that also operates a foundry business.

With the latest generation of HBM technology, known as HBM4, the logic chip at the base of each memory stack must be manufactured using advanced foundry processes. Samsung can produce these in-house, while SK Hynix relies on the Taiwanese foundry giant TSMC. If Samsung continues losing foundry engineers, Park warns, collaboration between its memory and foundry divisions could suffer—while SK Hynix, which previously had only a memory team and is now hiring foundry engineers, could gain an edge in HBM research.

For engineers like Choi, who has spent seven years at Samsung and was once a standout performer, the motivation to excel has evaporated. He and his colleagues now monitor every SK Hynix job posting and alert each other when new ones appear. There is always more work beyond their basic duties, he says, but there is no point in doing it.

As Samsung and SK Hynix wage their talent war, the outcome could determine which company controls the memory chips powering the AI revolution. Share this article with your network and join the conversation about the future of the semiconductor industry.

Source: MIT Technology Review AI