AMD

AMD has fewer time-wasters from upper management than a company such as Intel. For example, less required "training" in subjects such as 'business ethics', 'sexual harassment', and 'soldering safety'. AMD has fewer of the "too secret to show you" people than Intel.

AMD has too many non-technical managers. Surprisingly enough, engineering is fairly important at a microprocessor design company. How can a manager who is technically incompetent do a good job managing engineers? The result is promotions for those engineers with unusual skill in PowerPoint, fast talking and hand waving, or who speak with an unusual accent.

AMD has way too many project managers, at least in some areas. These non-technical people "manage" highly technical projects by constantly asking about the schedule, rather than solving project logistic or hardware problems.

An engineer who has good PowerPoint and hand-waving skills will be happy here. However, if you believe actual results are more important than talk, you will be frustrated at AMD.

Advice for interviewing: It is very easy to impress the non-technical managers, if you can do it with a straight face. Just use as many of these phrases as possible when speaking:

• move forward
• going forward
• enablement
• traction
• driving towards
• all on the same page
• We aren’t where we want to be
• close the loop
• stay tuned
• this data is still very wet
• take the discussion offline
• we are in alignment

Also: never call yourself an engineer. You are an Architect.

Reward results, not PowerPoint and hand-waving.