Intel

The people! Diverse, intelligent, opinionated, and extremely knowledgeable. If you want to be surrounded by people that actually know every single thing about computers and software, there's no other place.

Intel has many worlds inside itself. If you change from one team to another, it's like changing from one company to another; everything is totally different. So if you're bored with one aspect of technology, change to a different group and learn about other stuff without leaving the company.

The benefits are mostly great (see exceptions in the list of downsides), especially the medical benefits.

It is inspiring to work on products that are used by millions (and in some cases billions) of people.

There's no transparency on how people's performance is reviewed. The only clear thing is that it is a popularity contest where the management friends are rewarded, and everyone else hangs on tight because of the benefits. Then, if you spend some time without a promotion, your chances for promotions diminish dramatically because you're labeled "with low career velocity".

Internally, we know that we are just like IBM in the 80s: a company that just got rid of a host of antitrust issues, with a huge hierarchy, ossified processes all over, and so very slow to respond to the competition.

That's because the only way to grow professionally is by becoming a manager. So, people that should and people that shouldn't be a manager are fighting hand and fist to become one. Then we have more hierarchy, and the monster feeds itself.

Cut the hierarchy: we don't need so many layers of management.