Altera Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Altera as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Think forward, take calculated risks, be agents of change, adapt quickly. Challenging and there is a lot of opportunities to improve the soft skills and technical knowledge. Provided large and cosy cube for employees.

Cons – Lack of documentation and guidelines for the engineers, have to define and answer to your area of responsibility

Advice to Senior Management – Be more transparent and interactive with subordinates

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Altera full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Benefits and flexibility are major pros

Cons – Long hours and lots of travel

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Altera

Pros – Salary environment schedule benefit location

Cons – Management, vision, lack of accountability

Former Employee – worked at Altera

Pros – manager and colleagues are very nice

Cons – not many young people, and gym is small

Current Employee – been working at Altera for more than 8 years

Pros – People - Top Notch ... but they are loosing them for really bad reasons. Understaffing folks so they have to do NCG roles. Need a new team of young talent to learn, expand and be part of a great company. Great Technolgy, Good Marketing and Improving operations

Cons – Under Resourced.... Very few young people... Problems 3-10 are Under Resourced;

Advice to Senior Management – Add more resources.... Add more resources. .. Establish a basic ROI to everything. Not an Opportunity Cost. Nothing can compare to 70pts of margin. Nothing can move forward with proper funding.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Altera full-time for less than a year

Pros – - Some of the smartest people in FPGA industry work here
- Opportunity to work in software (CAD/algorithms) and hardware (traditional RTL design stuff)
- Cool projects, many interesting things to learn, weekly tech talks
- Interns treated well
- Great compensation, work-life balance

Cons – - Understaffed departments
- Needs to pursue innovation aggressively

Advice to Senior Management – - Spend more dollars on R&D, focus on game changing innovation

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Altera full-time for more than a year

Pros – - engineers have vertical assignments. Responsible for all aspects of design from architecture, RTL entry, verification, schematics, layout, etc.
- lots of opportunities to do new things within your group
- technical leadership opportunities

Cons – - too much planning on what to do vs. actually doing what needs to be done (make sense?)
- more competition than collaboration between groups and cross-functional teams
- too often the solution to a solve a technical problem is to call long meetings

Advice to Senior Management – Help engineers understand that they need to be responsible for their work

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Altera

Pros – Great people. good opportunities to learn and grow

Cons – office politics can be frustrating

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Altera

Pros – good teamwork, open communication, good pay, good facilities, excellent financials of the company - received one of the best managed semi-conductor companies

Cons – can be a bit hard to push new ideas and change suggestions - but in some pockets of company the culture is very open to change.

Advice to Senior Management – Well done on financials! Please communicate re organizations better and earlier to the employees. Please pay more attention to engineering employees work-life balance.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Altera

Pros – Unlike many semiconductor companies, Altera still has some growth potential. Altera can likely double its size in 5-10 years. After that, well nothing in high tech will grow. The management seems to recognize this timetable and is trying to adjust. Hit the R&D pedal for a few years, then hope for the best.

Cons – Distributed organization makes for some long days. Offices in Malaysia, UK, and Austin.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep the R&D pedal down for as long as you can. We all know that there is a small window for growth. After that, well try not to have too many layoffs.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend