Semiconductor recruitment
in Cardiff and South Wales.

Rooted in the cluster

South Wales has become one of the most significant places in Europe for compound semiconductor manufacturing. Fabs, epitaxy facilities, packaging operations and the supply chain around them sit within a short drive of Cardiff, and the engineers who staff them tend to move between the sites over the course of a career. They know each other, and they know which sites are growing.

Our headquarters is in Cardiff and we work as part of this community. Being local means we can meet candidates over coffee in the week they hear about a role, and we can tell a client honestly how their site is regarded among engineers who have worked nearby.

A typical search

A wafer fabrication site near Newport was running a new product line and needed a yield engineer to take ownership of excursions and defect trends. The previous engineer had moved to a customer, the line manager had been covering the work, and the expansion plans were slipping. A national agency had circulated the role and found candidates willing to relocate from other regions, but none of them understood compound materials or the way a small fab operates.

Joel contacted people he knew at neighbouring sites and asked, without naming the company, who they would trust with a yield problem. Two names came up repeatedly. One of them worked for a company a short drive away and had grown restless in a role that had become mostly reporting.

The engineer visited the fab on a weekday evening with the line manager, walked the floor and asked about metrology coverage before asking about salary. The scope would widen and her commute would shorten. She accepted within days of the formal offer.

What local presence gives a client

We are able to advise on how a package will compare locally and how a notice period is likely to unfold. We can also judge what a candidate's family situation might mean for a move. Those details are known by people who live here, and they decide whether an offer is accepted. Our clients also benefit from the relationships Joel has kept with engineers who have moved between sites over the years.