Applied Materials

This job involves product engineering, quality engineering (SQE, CQE, NPI quality), reliability engineering, and TPM.

The Quality & Reliability (Q&R) organization has a high concentration of Indian managers. Employee turnover rates are very high, with several people leaving teams every year and few "US persons" left.

There are safety concerns about retaliation from managers if negative feedback is provided to HR. During interview processes, candidates may not get to interact with current team members to get a sense of the group culture.

The role involves collaborating with process engineering teams on product development programs (PDP). However, due to high turnover on those teams, it can be difficult to obtain needed data and analysis support.

There are complaints that in meetings, the management team, consisting of the VP, directors, and managers, asks overly detailed questions unrelated to the Q&R role, which most view as demeaning and demanding. Requests for assistance from leadership are sometimes met with being redirected elsewhere rather than direct support.

Workloads can be very high, with some engineers handling 30-100 emails per day in addition to being assigned multiple programs across time zones, resulting in very long work hours (7 am - 11 pm).

There are perceptions that managers do not provide adequate resources yet criticize subordinates' time & project management and technical abilities. Some view certain managers as excelling more at political maneuvering than providing clear leadership functions and value.

Overall, the work environment and management culture in this Q&R organization are perceived negatively by employees. High turnover, heavy workloads, retaliation, and performance criticism from managers are common experiences reported.