Intel

Pay is generally very good, with two extra bonus programs, especially if you're in a higher grade.

You may get to travel to different GEOs. Our team had collaborating divisions all over the world (Finland, Israel, Netherlands, S. Korea, Taiwan).

Good opportunity to see places. I traveled two to three times a year while being in an engineering role.

Some good positive aspects of the culture: Intel has a "work-week" (WW) based schedule (simpler to learn and more efficient). It at least declares a lot of good intentions, but in practice you may find a different picture. All kinds of training are available to employees (a lot of mandatory programs).

Intel has plenty of relationships in the industry. My team ended up facing customers in "deep technical dive" support programs. I got to work with all big industry names: Samsung, Asus, HP, Dell, Sharp, Sony, to name a few.

I formed a very low opinion of higher/senior level management. Within the company, they essentially encouraged what a good friend of mine called a "clan war". I happened to work in MCG (mobile communication group) that, throughout my time (3.5 years), was reorganized 6 times(!).

Many times, the multi-month work of a whole department (not only my team) was thrashed because some new boss would come and "not favor" your team, and whatever result was done to that date.

Global cross-team coordination effort was very low to non-existent. Teams would "fight" for resources and have a quite unhealthy competition. Decisions would be made with some irrelevant considerations and forced down to my team.

As a result, the culture actually experienced would not be really engaging.

The performance review process is essentially botched. Some much higher management essentially issues a quota on the number of good performance ratings to your team. Then, you end up in a situation where, no matter how much you tried, you'd be stuck at your performance grade because no good rating can be made available to you (again, despite the acknowledgment of a high level of contribution and such).

Example: Our team received only one EE (exceeds expectations) rating, and my manager decided to use it to promote one particular employee (citing his family situation (he had a new child, etc.) and his current lower grade). Others were given S (satisfactory) ratings.

fire most of senior management as incapable