Intel

Stable company, good benefits. It's actually pretty cool to take the Intel Air Shuttle for career/customer meetings. There are good departments out there at Intel to work at.

I worked in Storage, NAND/Optane storage, and it was a very good experience. The department ran like its own company, with lots of opportunity, especially in Linux SW design projects. At one point, the storage department was projected to ship more silicon than Intel's CPUs, which is crazy.

Red tape, tech growth is a little muddled. IT laptop support is still all Windows (hello, macOS and Linux laptops, anyone?). There are bad departments out there to make you miserable.

The storage department got relocated to the Aloha campus. This is a campus where, basically, engineering growth (especially SW) dies. Because, let's face it, the Jones Farm, Hawthorne Farm, and Rhonler Acres are where all the R&D is happening. You are on your own forgotten island at Aloha (Intel's first Oregon building).

Also, at the end of the day, if you really want a modern career in SW, you'll need to leave the company. Intel is not an SW company, though there is SW work. However, it's really hard to find the latest and greatest SW opportunities at Intel. I started realizing the danger of me becoming obsolete in the SW industry when I attended a few external conferences. I was also severely underpaid as an SW design engineer and had to get a few external offers (one I obviously eventually took) to prove to management what I thought I was worth was true, especially since I was doing the role of 1.5-2 heads (design + QA).

Don't want to lose a valuable software engineer? Pay attention to the software engineering market. Support more software career growth and projects. Don't trap software engineers concentrating on their PowerPoint skills as they become more senior; they should still get some software opportunities with their veteran experience.