AMD Reviews

Pros

1. My manager recongnized me and provided me a lot of opportunities.
2. I have a chance to learn a lot of new technology.

Cons

1. The package is not competitive.
2. The sites worldwide are too many. Thus, the co-work among different sites are not efficient because fo different time zone.

Advice to Senior Management

I wish to re-value some many sites, especially R&D since I don't see any benefit from it. What I see is that the people needs to spend much time on communication among different sites.

Pros

AMD is a strong company, now that there is a CEO in place. The technical compentency of the IT team was unsurpassed. I loved the people there, and I made a mistake by leaving.

Cons

Because of the lack of executive leadership, it was difficult for decisions to be made and communicated.

Pros

Working with Smart people and good learning environment

Cons

Don't follow enough process for Software tool development

Pros

- If you don't like to do any actual work, you can get away with a lot of that here.
- The pay is fair.
- it's a big organization so there is potential for career growth

Cons

- Management doesn't recognize the value of curiosity
- Critical roles assigned to unreliable interns
- Low morale among coworkers

Advice to Senior Management

Deal with the people who spend all day on youtube.
Promote curiosity as it is a requirement for creativity and education.
Don't expect your interns to work on-call in a critical role
Be flexible with task assignments to interns

Pros

My particular job is relatively low pressure and I have been given some degree of control over what I work on.

Cons

It is a big company that is spread over many countries (many time zones, languages). Management is completely focused on getting the next products out the door and does not care about employee career development.

Advice to Senior Management

It might be typical for large companies but it would be nice to see managers communicate and cooperate better with each other rather than trying to protect their own little empires.

Pros

Many sites around the world. There are lots of young engineers to work with. Company is trying to give bonuses even though its loosing money left and right.

Cons

AMD is not doing well. Getting squeezed out of "relevance" from Intel on high end and Arm on the low end. Arm is selling into the servers now, managements response is we will buy Calxeda and dominate the space... not a good strategy to me.

Advice to Senior Management

Drop the many many projects that is going on. Pick 3 chips that people will want to buy. Have all your engineers work on the same 3 chips, and tape out the same 3 chips out on Multiple foundries, yes redundant work but a necessity .

Pros

Working with the latest technologies with innovations that drives the products to be the best in the market.

Cons

Progress and growth is difficult.

Pros

Very capable and smart engineers.
Teamwork. Knowledge is shared.
I am adequately compensated (don't know how it compares to industry though).
Great location and building if you live in South Austin.

Cons

Too much roadmap churn. Projects are cancelled too late after sunk costs even though the information was available to make the decision earlier. Not enough resources to support concurrent projects leads to stress and burnout.

Advice to Senior Management

Look at the total roadmap (versus segments) and validate that it is executable. Server SOCs are increasingly getting lower resource priority below the many APUs. No more lip service on servers -- walk the talk!

Pros

Employee benefits are a plus. Vacation and PPA time are still generous.

Cons

Lack of any upward mobility. Zero benefit for going above and beyond. Management is one tracked on their bonus plan.

Advice to Senior Management

Take care of your people. As of late, AMD has shifted to pushing down work, even doubling up on workloads. Burnout rate is high and they take advantage of the market condition.

Pros

AMD pays well and has excellent benefits.

Cons

The company is going through some major changes. They are a ship without a rudder. Even with the new CEO it is highly speculative if AMD will succeed or fail. Even if it's the former, understand that the culture probably won't change, that it's more important for you to "play the game" than it is to simply excel at your job and let your work do the talking. Recent downsizing eliminated a lot of very smart, hard-working employees and kept more than a few mid-level managers who are largely the root cause for AMD's problems in the first place. In a word, "politics." The managers are more interested in doing what they can to save their jobs than they are to provide a roadmap that makes sense or management that nurtures excellence.

Advice to Senior Management

Now that you've managed to eliminate your highest paid (i.e., experienced) employees, you'd better hire smart. Watch mid-level management and continue to clearly communicate a single focused direction for AMD.