Intel

Work on enabling cutting-edge hardware technology. Great opportunity to work with people with decades of experience in the hardware industry.

Intel is a meritocracy. Technical proficiency is not enough for going up this ladder; it will require excruciating dedication to exceed expectations and development of soft skills. Be ready to exist in persistent crunch mode. Still, promotions will be glacially slow and dependent on your organization's performance and resources, even if the whole company is doing great. Unless you are offered to hop into an opening in the organization with better pay, rotations within the company will further hinder chances of promotions.

A meritocracy sounds great in theory: value high performance and skills. In reality, measuring these is not trivial, and people within teams will be focused on visibility and personal accolades instead of enabling one another. Instead of creating a collaborative and enabling environment, you've got a passive rat race. Particularly on teams with various high-performing individuals, the implemented metrics at Intel are unfair and toxic.

Also, everyone knows Intel's business requires the best people and their full dedication, but the schedules being implemented will inevitably burn out your best-performing people, leading to lower performance in the long run or great talent leaving the company. This culture needs to change in order to label Intel "a great place to work."