Pros

Friendly, knowledgeable and helpful staff. There is a small charismatic minority at Mentor who wants to rock the boat and create change at Mentor. Unfortunately Mentor is a mammoth that doesn’t want to wake up. From what I have heard the US has excellent benefits, in Europe everyone has good benefits because of work protection laws. You don’t need to work for a specific company to receive good benefits.

Cons

Favouritism at Mentor Europe is as clear as crystal water. A while ago some 30-40 seasoned employees were made redundant from Mentor in Europe. During the same time at a certain department a contractor with links to the company was offered permanent role with significant increase in salary while the department halved its staff.
When asking my manager for a reference letter, he responded that Mentor has as policy to never provide reference for its former employees. I have never heard of such absurdity! Just visit Linkedin and see how many former Mentor employees have received recommendations from their former colleagues. I know for sure that this statement had nothing to do with my performance since I during the same year had received recognition for exceptional performance.

Bottom line, Mentor Europe is extremely unprofessional and poorly managed.

Mentor Corp. Executive Team have no vision. They have been setting the same unrealistic goals for the past 10 years and they have not even been close to achieving them.

On the corporate website you can read: “Mentor Graphics® is a leader in electronic design automation.” What exactly is Mentor a leader in? Is it technology? is it number of licensed users? Is it revenue? Last time I checked the financials they were number 3!
Leader isn’t second or third place, it is number 1! If Mentor is the leader than what is Cadence and Synopsis? Maybe they are number 1 and 2 in the pro league while Mentor is number 1 in the amateur league. The fact that Mentor claims to be a leader while being number 3, shows that the company has no intention of changing.

Advice to Senior Management

Rock the boat!!!! Put fresh blood in the senior ranks, people who are hungry for success and progression.