Intel

Flexible timings, opportunity to work on cutting-edge technology, smart coworkers, a great technical career track, and relatively high freedom to innovate and drive your ideas.

Bureaucracy and politics are taking center stage.

Senior leaders (especially technical leaders) are highly political and will try to take credit for things you have done.

The focal process is highly focused on the past year and does not take into account the grade level you are working at. If you group changes or the manager changes, you can be pretty sure that you have lost your promotion chance that year, even if you worked really hard and produced outstanding results.

You are then left hoping that you get a similar opportunity to perform next year and there are no org changes in the middle of the year (which, by the way, happens quite often at Intel).

Software is still treated as a stepchild. There is no management conviction on software projects, and they keep shutting them down prematurely or move them to low-cost geos where they get delayed and finally get shut down.

The strategy/focus changes every six months, as management has no clue about the market or confidence in their ability to carry forward the project.

Do some homework before you approve projects.

Then have patience, and show confidence in the work that your teams are doing.

Improve the focal process so that people are rewarded based on their overall contribution. Make sure it is flexible so that senior leaders are not scared, so much that they start stealing credit for work done by others.