Altera Reviews

Pros

Good products; good technology from TSMC; strong engineers

Cons

VP and directors too political: employee performance is highly dependent on how well they talk instead of their actual contributions

Advice to Senior Management

Set up anonymous paths to collect feedbacks; pay attention to front line managers; thoroughly evaluate whether the company needs so many directors (some dept has a 3:1 employee:manager ratio)

Pros

Solid well-run semiconductor company, cutting edge chips. Excellent pay-scale & benefits. A very competent traditional patriarchal corporate structure, if you like that sort of thing.

Cons

Since Altera comes from a chip-manufacturing background, planning ahead an minimizing risks are deep in the corporate DNA. If you're a software engineer, this can be... burdensome.

Advice to Senior Management

The chips are great, keep that up. The competitive advantage will increasingly be in your software tools. If you want to create great tools, you need great software engineers who love to make tools, and you need to let them do so.

Pros

Good pay.
Stock is rising
R&D investment is growing
Hiring in the US!

Cons

Still risk adverse.
Growth strategy is hard to pinpoint.

Pros

flexi time, keep salary secret

Cons

office politic, too many pretending management

Advice to Senior Management

be fair to those who work and seldom talk. never only appreciate those who talk more than work!

Pros

Salaries were competive to other equivalent jobs.

Cons

Management not good at promoting

Advice to Senior Management

need to promote te right people

Pros

Decent pay and coworkers. Good working environment if you have a good middle/senior manager.

Cons

Some senior managers change things for the sake of changing without evaluating all expects and providing convincing/compelling reasons. Some changes create unfair situation to headquarter employees.

Offshore shop is ok. However, senior mgt seems to approve of rewarding offshore employees who are struggling to catch up while treating the knowledgeable headquarter employees unfairly.

A simple decision may end up consuming unnecessary hours of discussions. Completing simple tasks may require equal or more discussion times.

Advice to Senior Management

Changes are always welcomed as long as it is a win-win situation for the majority, not uncertainty.

Pros

Very little politic, good working environment, good colleague.

Cons

Limited opportunity to grow veritically

Advice to Senior Management

No comment

Pros

Good solid company with strong financial background.
Good stock growth.
Very good health insurance benefits.
Very friendly peers and lower level engineers.
A good place to start as fresh graduate, but definitely not a place to work long term.

Cons

Managers are not technically competent.
Managers are incompetent on project management.
Focal review was not done fairly and not transparent at all.
Very political between San Jose and Penang sites, and also among the local department managers.
Reward goes to those who can speak the loudest, instead of those who can do the most technical work.
Questionable department long-term direction.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of those technically incompetent managers instead of changing their roles to be independent contributors, which just create more problem for Altera.

Pros

It has good technology, personal attention, good salary and benefits and it has excellent computers and chips. Very good environment

Cons

Long hours. long commute from home since i live far away from the corporate headquarters and there are too much trfaffic.

Advice to Senior Management

shorter hours, short commute from home since I live far away from the corporate headquarters and
there are too much trafffic

Pros

Stock options;
Continuing Educations;
Various of Resources;

Cons

Limited Career Advancement;
Salary Adjustment is not significant;