Texas Instruments

If you plan to move abroad, this is a good place to start. If you plan for the long term, you're wasting your years here.

For Philippine salary rates, they pay too low (all semicon in general actually do pay low) for the job that they make you do. A technician in the nearby aircraft production line makes more than the engineer at TI.

The best learnings and takeaways from working in TI:

I just can't feel the pressure of working where I am now because the pressure in TI was the worst! Nothing can top that kind of negative culture and environment (test production and managers are toxic).

I appreciate the workplace I am now, even if it's not the best. Whenever I think about the toxic experience in TI for almost 5 years, I'm just glad I'm not there anymore.

They will hire new college graduates, cum laudes, because they are still young, on fire, and mostly will not demand high pay – but this is a trap. If you're a cum laude, you're wasting your years here if you plan to stay. They can't hire experienced engineers because they cannot pay as much. Yes, they pay too little.

If you look at most engineers who stayed for 10+ years, they are sad, negative-minded, and have not gone anywhere (financially, at least). Only those who get promoted to managers will get paid well. But even managers are not spared from the pressure.

They have this culture that you're giving your life to TI. You give your weekends to TI. You give your holidays, rest days. You must overtime if there's an issue (and there's always an issue! It's a trap). They e-mail at night.

Engineers can't do sh*t to production supervisors or managers. You cannot practice real engineering because delivery is their priority. They say "Quality is number 1," but they don't practice that. You are pressured to just deliver.

If you're a cum laude engineer, use TI as a stepping stone to abroad. If you plan to stay in PH, maybe 3 to 5 years is enough, then go out! They won't even care because they'll just hire the next batches of cum laudes. They are really smart to keep the salary low by hiring new college graduates.

I moved out, got paid double by another company, and then got easily promoted. If you have a family, stay away from TI. They won't say it, but they want you to give them your life (your time).

You are smart for trapping fresh graduates. You have allowed way too much negativity in the company; it will easily extinguish the fire and passion from a new college graduate.

Moving out of TI was the best career move I did. Though I did learn a lot from working at TI. I learned a lot of skills, learned to work from a bad manager, and learned to survive pressure.

All of that, though, at the cost of being paid too low. When someone asked the top management why we are being paid too little, they said: "That's why we are keeping the Philippines branch. Otherwise, we would have moved production to China/India for way less salary cost."

Just wow.