Intel

There are great benefits to working at Intel. With the right manager, work is extremely flexible, allowing you to maintain an excellent work-life balance. When I need to handle something at home, my manager and coworkers have no issues stepping in to carry the load while I'm out. Likewise, I'm there to help when my coworkers need it.

There are also a lot of little perks, such as raffles from the "Great Place to Work" team where you can win tickets to movies, sporting events, concerts, etc. There are a number of fun activities planned by individual teams and entire sites to celebrate or just get to know each other better. One great activity that just completed was a kid's day where we could bring in our kids for fun science and technology events all day. My son loved it.

Overall, the work environment, when you have found the right team, is very enjoyable.

The most difficult thing for me about working here is the politics. Unfortunately, within the leadership and management layers, there are a lot of entrenched folks who seem more interested in promoting their own careers than in doing the right thing for the company. Because of this, I have seen some terrible decisions made that set the entire company back and took many months to recover, but there was no accountability held to the decision-maker for this.

It can be very frustrating to be passed up on a promotion only to see someone less deserving but more politically savvy promoted instead.

The management layers need to be cleaned out to limit the political power of some of the entrenched cliques. I'd like to see more accountability for decisions and agendas that end up hurting the company.