AMD Reviews in Austin, TX Area

Pros

* Great community feeling, informal atmosphere, socially laid-back co-workers and managers
* Middle-level managers try to be as transparent as possible about 'people management', review process, executive mis-directions etc
* Relatively alright work-life balance. Management takes care of your life balance as much as fairness might allow.
* Flex hours, work from home available - very flexible work environment

Cons

* Completely clueless engineering upper-mgmt.
* Complete vacuum for entrepreneurial zest - even within engineering: More focus on incremental improvements than radical changes
* Very little lateral opportunity: very easy to get pigeonholed into doing the same job - incrementally better - for years. In fact, this is a pro for people seeking deep dives into their field of choice.
* Non-existent professional improvement opportunities
* VERY cyclical business model: Company goes to the brink and comes back from it after selling off assets and getting rid of 10% US workforce.

Advice to Senior Management

Fix the cons ... what else!

Pros

Work on cutting edge technology, can make significant contribution to the company. Manager have technical skill, and very supportive to team.

Cons

Compensation not competitive, Need to revisit the pay strutted. Also may broaden her product line, and invest more on new area

Advice to Senior Management

Middle level management has the technical skill, but the higher level management may need to look at different aspect in addition to pure engineering aspect.

Pros

Great technology with very smart people.

Cons

Very centric thinking management that does not think outside the box. Must do it the AMD way, the way we have always done it. No time for change we have a product to put out.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow healthy conflict to provide the best engineering outcomes.

Pros

AMD hires, retains and rewards extremely sharp minds of the semiconductor industry. It has competitive pay structure and provides good flexibility of work, to take up new/different challenges. AMD also proves a good work/life balance.

Cons

AMD's management and organization structure seems very distributed and isolating. More often than not, executive-level decisions are unknown or unclear and the road maps that are not competitive.

Advice to Senior Management

The executive management should come up with better, more competitive road maps and provide better visibility into them for the employees.

Pros

good balance between life and work. Friendly environment with good people around you. If you are good, you will be respected

Cons

compensation can be a bit lower than other places. No other major complaints. Starting to be more flexible with compensation

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to employees. Provide developmental opportunities. Too many reorgs, stick to one structure and get it right the first time

Pros

Excellent work life balance. AMD is not like Dell. Many people come from Dell to work at AMD and really prefer the culture inside AMD. There is a remote work program for those who can get there work done from home and there are rarely meetings at 8am or 5pm (unlike Dell). Leadership is competent for the most part and makes good effort to communicate company goals and strategies to every employee, so you feel looped in to the larger picture and can map your goals accordingly.

Cons

As with any large corporation, there are re-orgs without much warning or communicated rationale that is tangible and figuring out how to work cross-functionally is left to managers and below. That means make the most of how to get work done and create process where you find there is none. Director and above jobs seem to typically be filled by going outside the company with a few exceptions. HR and execs seem to know this but have yet to do more internal candidate grooming.

Advice to Senior Management

Nurture talent from within and then hire from within. Make going external only for talent that does not exist internally. Make this intentional.

Pros

Flexible work hours
Nice facilities
friendly people

Cons

Very political
no real growth initatives

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to the mgt. Many are simply riding the gravy train

Pros

Its a small company atmosphere where one is working on relatively small teams competing with a rather sizable company as one's main competition. The workload requirements at all levels are exceedingly broad, which means you dont get pigeon-holed like many other companies.

Cons

The pay packages are a bit on the light side. Making it through internal promotions to fellow or above is nearly impossible. Its much easier to make director or fellow by quitting and rehiring.

Advice to Senior Management

Look at your recent attrition problems; this may be a strong sign that things arent going quite the way you would like them. Addressing these type of issues with retention money and other forms of financial incentives only covers up the underlying problems.

Pros

Opportunities to move around within the company.
Management allows employees to take vacation when they like.
Lots of very talented engineers.
Management communicates very well.

Cons

Resource starved and so lot of things that are planned do not get executed.
Lack of educational support - it is almost impossible to take classes for career development.

Advice to Senior Management

Either reduce scope of products or find the resources to execute the projects.

Pros

flexibility is high, resources are easy to be accessed, people are more tolerant to each other at work, there is always a stage for you to present your idea.

Cons

it all depend on which AMD you work at. The one in TX is in general too hot and fewer good restaurants close to the workplace, nothing really particularly bad from what I remember. It's all about your interest to your work!

Advice to Senior Management

I think AMD should build up stronger team work atmosphere inside the company. Letting the employees be proud of their work and the brand. Encourage employee to use its own products by giving a better employee discount!!