Cadence Design Systems

The best thing I can say is that most coworkers at the individual contributor level, and first-level managers who had worked their way up over time from the roles they were now managing, were very good and I have great respect for their skills, values, and work ethic.

There are always exceptions to this of course, but they were the minority.

On the field side, work/life balance is not satisfactory and that is echoed by others. It does depend on your customer assignments, though. Even in profitable spaces, however, management seems unwilling to make changes to alleviate this, even when asked directly and repeatedly.

There is instead a push to just do more with less, and faster. In my observation, this results in lost opportunities for business growth and career development, and risks high rates of burnout.

Upper management at the C-level and executive staff appear to be doing a steady and solid job in steering the company. This is especially true in contrast to the group under Mike Fister and his staff that were cleaned out by the board some years ago. Things are much better now.

I would advise management to look closely into their customers' satisfaction, and invest more to raise it. Don't manage to investors' expectations of margins, like this was just another software company, but give to customers the technical support they need (not just to the favored "top" customers). You will see dividends in customer and employee satisfaction and productivity.