Anritsu Reviews

Pros

Relaxed and paced working environment compared to similar companies due to proper project planning; employees benefits are better compared to similar companies

Cons

Japan headquarters makes seemingly irrational decisions on how remote business is run.

Pros

Wonderful team atmosphere. Excellent work-life balance. Lots of recreational activities (volleyball, basketball, tennis, table-tennis, small gym, running, etc).

Cons

Sometimes a little laid back atmosphere. A little behind the curve when it comes to modern engineering practices and tools (esp. software). Management style tends to be pretty conservative (this can be both good and bad depending on situations).

Pros

Anritsu USA has a family atmosphere. Most its employees have been there for many years so, naturally, they know each other very well. Management focuses on developing its employees through training and offers generous tuition reimbursement for those who want to pursue graduate or technical degrees.

Cons

Anritsu has old school mentality and lacks innovation in many areas.

Advice to Senior Management

Push for more creative, innovative solutions to everyday issues.

Pros

Anritsu has pretty good stability and job security.

Cons

Anritsu is a very old fashioned, conservative, Japanese company. The management strongly needs to be modernized and improved. There are many "silos" of knowledge within the company and often departments and groups tend to work against each other. There is not a lot of chances for upward mobility at the company and it has a very top down authoritative structure, with most managers staying in their positions for many years. Ironically, although Anritsu is a technology company, they tend to use outdated and archaic systems internally when there are many better alternatives that would increase efficiency. It seems that there is a lot of inefficiency throughout the company and this is probably due to the top heavy structure with inflated salaries at the higher levels.

Advice to Senior Management

Empower the employees with teaming and flatten the organizational structure. Provide monetary incentives to employees for innovative ideas and create an open culture as opposed to a culture of fear and intimidation.

Pros

Test instruments require nearly all disciplines of engineering, DSP, FPGA, Complex Synthesizers (PLLs), YIG based Synthesizers, Microwave circuits of all types, MMICs, and system engineering. This is the main reason a technical person would be interested in a company such as Anritsu. The benefits for higher education are quite good as well. I got my MSEE paid for in full by Anritsu. For me, anyway, they sent the money directly to Santa Clara University (SCU) and did not require a lot of paperwork from me. I don’t know if it is the same today since I was employed from the 90s up to 2008. Most companies these days pay nothing for school or next to nothing (like a $2000 budget per year). SCU costs about $1400 per class and you need about 22 classes to graduate, do the math and you find that Anritsu favors strong in this area.

Cons

Well, what can I say? I had many managers at Anritsu. Some situations were good and others were bad. I posted mostly neutral ratings for management stuff since some of my reviews made me look like I could walk on water while other reviews had me looking bad. This is no different than any other place really. Keep in mind that Anritsu is a manufacturing scene so if you have an aversion to that sort of thing then Anritsu may not be your cup of tea. I was in the R&D and never in manufacturing so I was fairly safe, but you’ll still have to interface with manufacturing a lot. It’s necessary since that’s where all the money comes from to cut your paycheck. Now that we’re on the topic of pay I’ll have to point out that my wage has doubled since leaving Anritsu. Low wage in the world’s most expense place to live was a big gripe of mine. In my opinion (based on what other engineers told me about their wage) a typical design engineer earns less than six figures. For example, an experienced engineer with 10 years of design experience might be getting about $85 to $95k per year. I think the trade off here is (or was) stability and technical growth verses pay. For less pay Anritsu offers stability and technical growth. Times have been bad so Anritsu has suffered large setbacks with regards to stability. Mostly, Anritsu is a good place to learn.

Advice to Senior Management

Give engineers more support so they can focus on design. That’s a big request, but it would make and can make a large difference. There is no sense in forcing an engineer to learn schematic entry or overload them with too many day-to-day details of some process. Good and innovative engineering does come from creativity.

Pros

Great people. Good work/life balance. Generally low stress. Good benefits.

Cons

More limited mobility within the organization for the non-EE. Mediocre salary compensation. Unknown risk for the US divisions due to the declining performance of Japan based organizations. Hard to get excited about the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Speak more openly/honestly about the performance/financial health/future of both Japan and US based organizations.

Pros

Good upside compensation for performance
Longterm stability
Great technical engineering capabilities

Cons

Inadequate focus and understanding of the US market
Poor or non-exsistent marketing, poor time to market

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to and meet the needs of bellweather US coustomers.

Pros

Good work environment. People are friendly and there are a lot of very smart engineers who work in Morgan Hill (Microwave Measurements Division [MMD]). It's a great environment for learning about different aspects of electrical engineering since test and measurement equipment requires so many of them (RF/microwaves, digital, DSP, analog, PLLs, software, firmware, etc).

Cons

Poor project leadership. Management doesn't seem to be able to recognize who should lead projects and who shouldn't. On the flip side, they seem to recognize this downfall and are trying to provide some training.

Another downside is that MMD is somewhat beholden to Anritsu Corporation in Japan. Usually they are "hands-off" but occasionally they get involved (cancel good projects or reduce funding).

Advice to Senior Management

Get some balls and tell Japan to screw off. :-)