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More focus, more technical work and innovation, and less managers

Staff Software Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at Arm for 4 years
November 23, 2019
Cambridge, United Kingdom
3.0
RecommendsPositive OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros

It is a recognised name in the industry. You have access to state-of-the-art hardware and software years before official releases. There is an opportunity to get in touch with a large amount of big names in the industry and build relationships.

Cons

Mostly no products - no focus at all on execution and delivery

Lot of duplicated work between teams, almost absent communications between groups working on the same things - eventually this leads to reorganisations and layoffs

Incredible amount of middle managers and self-declared tech leads who don't really lead anything, apart from their career in some safe spot.

You can pass your day basically doing nothing and nobody will ever complain, unless you don't get along with the management, then they will pick on you on the next round of layoffs

Went downhill since SoftBank acquisition, as SoftBank is either using Arm for financial/political reasons or they don't have a clue of what to do with it - basically late on every possible market expansion opportunity apart from mobile (AI, servers, autonomous driving, etc).

Lots of inexperienced hires doing fundamental technical work, hence the work created on top of that will be flawed.

No exit interview.

Advice to Management

Reduce the number of managers (tech leads, directors, senior directors).

Stop hiring just graduates to do the work - this reflects in the quality of your final product.

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