Applied Materials Reviews

Pros

Energetic team lead by great country president

Cons

Business model needs to be reviewed

Advice to Senior Management

Go to the ground level

Pros

Team work, challenging projects, lot of exciting things going on. Experiencing what's happening at the front of semiconductor technology and etc.

Cons

Again, challenging environment lead to high pressure at the work place. Lack of resources and need to face multiple customer un-reasonable requests all the time.

Advice to Senior Management

Take care of the employees, who are the most worthy assets in the company. Focus and excel on the core products and do not invest in low tech and easy to enter sectors by what Wallstreet is talking about.

Pros

Resourceful place, if you know how to find and get what you need. Opportunity to experience large projects and complex office politics.

Cons

Specific to the SunFab group, but can also apply to many other groups: . No fair award system. No award for real hard work. No fair performance review system. Too many layers of management. Engineers have responsibility without authority. Management are not liable for their mistakes (no feedback system). Very in-efficient purchasing department. . . .

Pros

Applied is best suited for new graduates with little experience. You'll get:

- Opportunity to work with high-end technology
- Opportunity to travel at someone else's expense
- Opportunity to convert your H1B into a green card (but you won't be happy staying there that long...)
- Solid compensation at start and in good years

Cons

Applied Materials is not a place for technologists to build a long-term career.

- Long hours and generally uncaring management means that you will likely be a pissed-off engineer working in a building full of pissed-off engineers
- High turnover means a lot of time spent on re-work
- Poor raises and rates of promotion even with high ("HS/TC") performance ratings
- Advancement dependent on personal connections rather than performance. In one department in SSG, rankings and promotions were handed down before performance reviews were completed.
- In good years, compensation is a 6 on a scale of 1-10. In bad years, its a 2. Average: 4 on a scale of 1-10.

Advice to Senior Management

Buy another company or two so that you can juice the company's revenues and make it look like we are actually growing.

Pros

1. Leading in high tech equipment field
2. Aggressive and good enterprise development strategy
3. Strong team work
4. Good training arrangement
5. Not bad reward

Cons

Employee performance appraisal system should be improved

Advice to Senior Management

The evaluation for new investment or merger should be more precise

Pros

Market leader and lots of talent in engineering groups

Cons

Top management not having broad view of the industry. More finance operated than technology operated company with current CEO.

Advice to Senior Management

Employ appreciation. Top management hires should not be based on network.

Pros

global company, good pay, great technology

Cons

There is a very real bias against employees advancing into the senior management roles. It does not matter what you do unless you come from outside the company forget it. I see no career path for myself after over a decade here.

Advice to Senior Management

Preference internal promotion over external hires.

Pros

I found the position, people to be most rewarding. The compenstion was adequate as well as organized structure to include benefits, training, and business exposure.

Cons

The value of adequate engineering resources within the KPU, and field operations is a clear detractor. RIFs and the up and down customer market make it nerve wracking to know if one is going to be employed at any point in time.

Pros

There are good global opportunities

Cons

there are constant reorganizations in the company

Advice to Senior Management

fous

Pros

learned alot about solar and engineering and how a big company works

Cons

old school engineering corporate slow and political

Advice to Senior Management

needs to be more of a meritocracy