Texas Instruments

• Good Technology: TI has several good technology value propositions that make it a good place to work and grow professionally.

There are a lot of senior, career TI'ers who will teach their juniors a lot. You need to find a good one and see if you can work for one.

• If you get into the right group, you will be richly rewarded because you get to work on new, challenging problems. If you deliver, TI will compensate and promote well.

The key is to find a group where YOU can contribute. The group must do well too. Being in a group that doesn't, or where your contributions are not visible, is not going to help.

• Good culture / work environment.

• Honest: Never saw a need to do anything dishonest. Didn't do options backdating or other bad stuff.

• Good benefits, although these days, like everywhere in the USA, the runaway cost of health insurance is becoming an issue.

There is also a large selection of technologies and opportunities, being a large company. So there is a lot of scope to move around. A lot of folks I knew did so and were well rewarded for doing so.

The culture will reward achievements, albeit a certain type of achievement.

• There are good resources to learn; for example, IEEE papers were free through the intranet.

• Management is generally supportive of going to college for an advanced degree, though it must be a practical plan that works with your job.

• Most managers will not complain about flex time, within reason.

• Tough to get out of the bottom pile: Your potential has something to do with getting recognized and promoted. But, being in the right place matters much more. If you don't get the good assignments (work on the new gee-whiz interface, some new platform, etc.), then you won't be rewarded. That will affect what you get paid, promoted, etc.

• Silos and politics. Like every other big company, I imagine. This makes it tough to get through with game-changing technologies which require working across silos. If a Sr. VP pushes it, of course it will happen. The question is, are they the closest to the customer's needs? If not, they should listen to the people who are.

• Rather arbitrary and capricious promotion process for engineers: The tech ladder needs you to have an assignment that you can demonstrate some glamorous achievement to get promoted. If you don't have that, the tech ladder won't reward you for delivering solid results on whatever is important to your management. This de-correlation between the recognition and what your manager wants you to do is a career killer.

e.g. If you work on a SW project – something – e.g. a compiler, then if you deliver generation after generation of compilers, it becomes a case of "What did you create that you deserve a promotion/recognition/whatever?"

The same thing applies to HW folks too. If you don't invent a new circuit or something, you don't get recognized.

• Some bad managers cause people to leave.

1. Make it easier to link accomplishments to recognition. If folks work on things that are critical, ensure that they are rewarded, even if the work is non-glamorous.

2. Create a system where people can clearly see the underperforming managers and remove them.

3. Stop promoting "DSP" or "Analog" or whatever flavor of the month. That is bad for morale. Promote a culture where people make good products for good-paying customers and win business.

4. Cut down silos. There are too many.