Intel

1. Ability to try different things in engineering (driver to applications) and management.
2. Ability to work from practically any geographic location.

1. Every group operates as if it is a totally independent company. Peripheral groups such as application engineers usually get a lesser raise than core group engineers such as component design engineers in CPU or validation engineers in CPU.

Managers are not current with technology and hence cannot identify what it takes to get a certain job done. Task complexity is usually not well understood by managers before deciding on awards/compensations. For them, profiling an application is the same as writing a device driver.