KLA-Tencor Employee Review

I worked at KLA-Tencor full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Good benefits

Opportunities for engineers and scientists to work on bleeding edge tech aimed at semiconductor manufacturing. Customer demand pushes the R&D and engineering to very short wavelengths, very fast robotics and positioning, wicked fast image processing, and very precise measurements..

Cons – The bottom line is the first line. SemiCap equipment is very cyclical, and KLAC is well known in Silicon Valley for laying people off whenever there's a downturn. There is a reputation, whose truth varies from division to division, of this leading to people and groups hoarding skills and information to make them irreplaceable and layoff-resistant. To be fair, I've heard this mostly from ex-KLAC employees.

The location in Milpitas at the McCarthy Ranch intersection of 237 and 880 can be a commute nightmare

More and more manufacturing has been shipped overseas, so there is significant 24/7 drift in requirements for senior people to be up early or late for meetings with Europe, Israael, China, etc.

Advice to Senior Management – Word from insider friends is that the culture of top-down decrees and insular groups and divisions has improved somewhat in the last 6-7 years, but has a long way to go. Keep at it!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend