Applied Materials

Some people get to work on impactful projects that help push our customers to smaller node sizes like N5, N3, etc.

There's a very diverse group of coworkers from all over Asia, the Americas, Africa, and Europe. I think this is mostly by accident because the semiconductor world is very international.

People in Austin are generally nice.

Low pay, which comes with low respect from the powers that be.

Hierarchical work environment. Often, you are assigned a project because some VP said so. This means you can waste your career on bad projects that never come to fruition.

Low flexibility and no PTO. All time off is up to manager discretion.

People in SCLA are generally not nice. Don't work for DDP, formerly known as DSM.

Pay good engineers more money (maybe not even me) and give them a say in what projects the BU should pursue.

Allow part-time remote work, 2-3 days a week.

There is too much overhead, project management, managers, and directors who don't build anything. These people will say they worked on a project without running a wafer or turning a wrench.

Go after more interesting projects, not just the same ones.