Oh by the way, I agree, NDAs all the time, and many of the tools are super user-unfriendly. There's quite a bit of money being made in developing better tools.

As for a list of companies, in the UK or with a UK presence, the following come to mind: Graphcore, Fractile, Olix, Axelera, Codasip, Secqai, PQShield, Vaire, SCI Semiconductor and probably also look at Imagination Tech, AMD and Arm. There are many other companies of different sizes in the UK, these are just the ones that popped into my head in the moment tonight.

[Please note: I am not commenting on actual salaries paid by any of these companies, but if you went looking, I think you'd find roles that offer competitive compensation. My other comments mentioning salaries are based on salary guides I read at the end of last year, as well as my own experience paying people in my previous hardware startup up to May 2025 (VyperCore).]