Mentor Graphics Reviews

I have been working at Mentor Graphics full-time for more than a year

Pros – good company, love working here

Cons – nothing that I can complain

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

I worked at Mentor Graphics full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – As a large company in Oregon Mentor provides a lot of opportunity.

Cons – Quarterly Revenue targets can get in the way of strategic planning

Advice to Senior Management – You got a good thing going. Don't mess it up.

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

I have been working at Mentor Graphics as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Flexible work hours.
Great work environment.
Working for the Calibre group has many wonderful perks, like free drinks and food every week.

Cons – Located in Wilsonville, rather than Portland.

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

I worked at Mentor Graphics

Pros – People are friendly and cooperative. A great campus with on-site cafeteria, gym, basketball court, library, and child care facility. Private offices for everyone, generous vacation time, and good benefits.

Cons – Layoffs happen frequently and are usually handled poorly - everyone finds out through the grapevine but management pretends nothing happened.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Mentor Graphics

Pros – Learn a lot from the job since they hire very smart employees. Every employee gets his own room with pretty powerful workstation. 24 vacation days per year is fabulous. Work life balance is excellent.

Cons – There is a lot of bad legacy code in the project i worked in which crippled development of new features.

Advice to Senior Management – Communicate important information to employees more proactively.
Need better co-operation between different groups.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Mentor Graphics

Pros – Good benefits, pay and co-workers. Campus is beautiful with wildlife and water features. Good recycling programs and care for environment. Individual offices instead of cubicles. Refreshments provided in most departments. Very nice gym and workout room. On site child care center with excellent staffing.

Cons – Location is far south of Portland. Very difficult to get non-automotive transportation.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Mentor Graphics

Pros – Senior Management gives you enough space and you are empowered to make a difference. This of course comes with a huge responsibility for the individual and the need to be able to deal with a rather ambiguous environment. Joining Mentor has been one of the best decisions in my career.

Cons – Not a place for people that need constant hand holding and micro-management.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Mentor Graphics

Pros – I was fortunate to work on a leading technology and contribute ideas without much opposition. The management and culture was very open where I worked most of my time there. Some divisions are more ordered and regimented, luckily mine was more like a mature but still nimble start-up. The headquarters is in Portland, Oregon not Silicon Valley which meant a higher quality of life, lower cost of living (offsets lower pay than California, where it's all the opposite!). It's a dynamic and hip young city that was a joy to live in (and becoming the west coast's music city, a la Austin, TX). I was able to live downtown with a quick and easy freeway commute, about the only time that I really needed my car other than going to the airport (where long term parking is among the cheapest).

Cons – I worked at the headquarters and heard little negative stuff there. What little I did hear, tended to come from small branch offices that were mostly sales and support.

Advice to Senior Management – Work harder to align the goals of your technology initiatives when they overlap or even conflict between divisions.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Mentor Graphics

Pros – Stable company, lots of opportunities to investigate new projects and plan your own work.
Communication between product teams is minimal, but is very good within a team. Most people have an open door and are willing to help when you ask questions. However, not but much of the procedures or code is documented so you have to go talk to people to pry out the 'tribal knowledge' to find out how things work.

Great campus and it's really nice to have your own office. Time off and working from home is quite common and you can actually get away for the weekends.

Cons – Some teams are much more political then others. Senior management tends to hire more senior people to do more managing which doesn't leave too many people to do the actual work. New college grads are rarely hired.
EDA tools are based on some pretty old software methodologies so any software knowledge learned isn't very transferable to the real world.
Processes to control quality and to well document and test new features seem to get thrown out the window by marketing when we reach the end of the release window.
Salary is slightly slower than average, but benefits are great and it's a stable environment to work in. Many people have been here for 15+ years.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire younger people

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Mentor Graphics full-time for more than a year

Pros – to become a good servant

Cons – because im people of the world

Advice to Senior Management – i well be successful

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