Applied Materials Reviews

Pros

Good benefits plan. Office location was nice. Technology was cool. Good opportunities for travel overseas to meet with customers and suppliers.

Cons

Poor and untimely decision making by senior management. Improper focus on the bottom line versus product innovation, quality and serving the customer.

Advice to Senior Management

Too many pinheads with PhDs are placed in senior management positions - those with poor leadership, interpersonal and business skills.

Pros

Supportive team members
Recent software programs
Intelligent managers
Ability to grow in one's position

Cons

Worked long hours.
Learn a new lingo.

Advice to Senior Management

Please continue to help the employees grow in their positions.

Pros

Compensation is comparable to other industry companies. Bonus is good if 38+ grade. Low pressure since management are not really working themselves

Cons

Management has no clue how to run a business, they are not competent and not honest. Most are just keeping their high pay

Advice to Senior Management

Be honest, authentic. Hear from people and do not close your eyes on the high bonus you get. Be fair to employees

Pros

- Great people to work with.
- Technical strength.
- Company size, marketshare.
- Strong company image.
- Santa Clara lab facilities (however deeply in danger due to budget concerns)
- 1st level management very strong

Cons

- Since Mike Splinter took over he has completely changed the focus of the company.
- Splinter remains as both Chairman and CEO, surrounded himself with "yes men" on the board of directors, and thus consolidated himself in complete unchallenged power.
- Huge rewards for executive levels with bonus payments and share options.
- Complete disregard for both valuable customers and the regular employees from senior management.
- A corrupt HR structure that is completely incompetent. HR director keeps the board of directors happy, but no one else exists. HR within the products groups pass the buck, never answer questions and generally show up to work whenever they feel like it. Some HR regularly park in ERT designated parking, so much for following the rules eh !
- Short term goals, living quarter to quarter. Finance within KPU's is under constant pressure to cut budgets which only ends up impacting our competitiveness to customers. One example of this is not being allowed to order wafers for development and customer demo preparation, another is getting rid of lab systems that are needed for customer support and development.
- Spending huge money on external consultations for the PLC reorg, this spending is never questioned.
- In "hard times" spending money on new gym equipment, sat tv for the gym, resurfacing the basketball courts in the Arques campus, and facelifting buildings on the Bowers campus for senior management.
- Having ridiculous spending on "Employee Appreciation" events, while at the same time announcing shutdowns.
- Constant fear of layoffs, layoffs are happening silently all the time, and multiple week shutdowns which end up resulting in no pay to employees if they run out of vacation time. Not only does this impact the employee's pockets - but it limits development time for critical products that are needed for customers.
- Competition is catching up with a weak Applied, and beating us daily on system selection (future business is becoming less and less)
- Short term thinking from Splinter is limiting future growth in the core business.
- Flawed strategy in Solar lead by Splinter resulted in a huge loss to the company, greatly impacted share price as a result. Yet Splinter remains in charge.
- Grossly overpaying with the $4.9B acquisition of Varian for implant, more than double of what was needed.
- Having yes people who happen to be personal friends of Silicon division Management getting promoted to Senior Director. Is now actively reducing Santa Clara lab capacity for cost reduction. Promotions are not done on technical merit, but more on who you know.
- Outsourcing, manufacturing getting outsourced to Singapore and China. Yet the corporation hangs an American Flag up and has a huge tax avoidance policy.
- Getting rid of full time employees, and rehiring them as contractors who have no benefits or security.

Advice to Senior Management

- Go back to having a separate Chairman and CEO.
- Try to rebuild the company, and focus once again on core technology.
- Get away from the quarter to quarter budget cycle, have a long term goal and strategy.
- Remember Dan Maydan and the proud vision that he used to have, how he was respected by customers and the industry.
- Stop the crazy executive compensation, and reward the developers of innovation - and the people who are facing the customers in their fabs.

Pros

Good pay (if you're not a contractor, otherwise you'll be grossly underpaid)
It's a global company, so it looks great on a resume

Cons

Company is top-heavy. Large layoffs every quarter end just to (falsely) inflate quarter end numbers causes the remaining employees to take on enormous amounts of work. Employees are working 60+ hours EVERY week, month over month trying to reach goals that are completely out of reach so that upper management can pocket big bonuses.

Advice to Senior Management

If you're not going to open your eyes and realize you're losing money because overworked employees are not productive employees, at least stop sending out company-wide emails announcing the latest promotion in upper management the week after your latest round of lay-offs.

Pros

Good colleagues, great camaraderie, good benefits

Cons

Bad working hours, partial when it comes to performance review

Advice to Senior Management

Be more connected to lower level employees

Pros

Very strong people
Smart people driven to succeed
Great pay in the good years

Cons

Weak CEO and CFO
Shabby main Sunnyvale campus
Over focus on cost savings over product development

Advice to Senior Management

Positive winning vision over ever present doom and gloom

Pros

You have an opportunity to grow your career.

Cons

Too much pressure. The time for each project is too short. Need more long-term vision.

Advice to Senior Management

Please minimize the overtime.

Pros

Many opportunities to learn different things.

Cons

Long hours and large work load.

Pros

The best things about AMAT while I worked were the employees and managers that worked there. Everyone knew my name (though I didn't know all of theirs) and they treated me kindly, even managers of other groups. Work environment is very casual and working hours are flexible. Managers and co-workers alike were always open to answering questions, helping out, and providing positive feedback.

Cons

While I worked there, I feel I made slow progression. Sometimes things will get put off or delayed for weeks, and I feel things could have been more organized. During downtime, I was struggled to find anything to work on since I felt I was wasting time.

Advice to Senior Management

I feel leadership was competent, and managers did not feel they were above their workers. I did feel there were bit of a communication barrier between the workers and their managers since managers expect certain work out of the engineers, yet they often do not see anything first hand.