Freescale Semiconductor Reviews in Austin, TX Area

Pros

Good work life balance overall

Cons

The level of competence overall here is significantly lower than at other Austin high tech employers.

Advice to Senior Management

They need new blood in the management ranks v

Pros

Good breadth of work, relaxed atmosphere, respect, good compensation, great vacation. If you like working with micro controllers then its like getting paid to play.

Cons

Little to no structured training packages, small minded upper management, silly top management deals during 2006 IPO means they all had too much money to stay and work.

Advice to Senior Management

stop being a 'yes' man.

Pros

Good facilities to work in (office area, cafeteria, parking). Good environment of employees working together with each other. Competitive benefits.

Cons

Planning. Too heavy a focus on the immediate bottom line at the expense of making decisions that will benefit the company in the long term.

Pros

benefits insurance, vacation, time off,
pay is about average
covered parking
coffee shop in most sites
cafeteria is adequate
easy work
plenty of offices to choose between at every site

Cons

no collaboration between groups
very silo'd
IT support is non existent
no real investment in business, fabs, or people
poor leadership
non existent hr
no people values
huge debt
focused on the short term

Advice to Senior Management

listen to all employees

Pros

great technology and a engineering driven company. A company to reckon if you want to be in the automotive and networking semiconductor space.

Cons

heavy focus internally. management works with each other to avoid conflicts which kills innovation at times.

Advice to Senior Management

follow thru in action when you state customer first and when you claim you want to be an externally focused company.

Pros

While the salary is poor and below market rate from my research, the benefits of this extremely large company are the best I've ever had. The vacation time is fantastic, however, it's nearly impossible to get your job done and take all the vacation offered, so many times employees end up working some over their allotted vacation days. Freescale has a use it or loose it policy, so most try to at least take some time off when they can here and there. Much like the weather in Texas, if you don't like your current work situation at Freescale, it will change, so tie a knot and hang on. The management teams are constantly changing for better or for worse.

Cons

The salaries are below market rate from my research, and there's not a lot of work/life balance. The management says they are supportive of a work/life balance, but this isn't realistic. After hours work is the norm, not the exception.

Advice to Senior Management

When employee surveys are conducted, take the results to heart. Acknowlege the issues identified and act on them to make positive improvements. Don't let mid-level managers off the hook from making improvements. When HR asks employees about issues, they need to really listen instead of making excuses for management and rationalize why the issues aren't really issues.

Pros

There are still good people around in the company.

Cons

Freescale was spun off from Motorola.
It is now relatively small (compare to Motorola), but management still have mindset of big company.

Advice to Senior Management

Forcus more on technology development and people management rather than just reduce the cost.

Pros

- Compensation is decent to high.
- Generous Paid Time off (though they recently changed yearly rollover)
- (shrinking) Pockets of excellence
Pretty much sums it up the 'good' aspects of working for Freescale.

Cons

The facility at Oak Hill is like a mausoleum or necropolis: nobody in the hallways, parking lots are empty, and the rooms that are occupied are years out of date with stained carpets/cubicles and very few windows. There's no buzz of activity, or hallway discussions...just the sound of your footsteps echoing as you walk to/from your daily grind. As trite and new-age as it sounds, there's an oppressive 'pressure' just walking in the door.

It's a huge campus, with adequate covered parking...all of which is a 5-15 minute walk from your work area. The cafeteria food is edible, which is good because even going for takeout off campus becomes a 30-45 minute ordeal between walking to your car and driving someplace and back.

The IT situation is "one size fits all", and every engineer knows that is a horrible way to work. Development machines are lumped into the IT pool, and replacing them is impossible, and they get ladened with all sorts of stuff that slows builds down. Many websites (including community development blogs, etc.) are blocked via the IT policy, and because all of ID is outsourced, there's not a single person in the company that you can attempt to have a rational conversation about changing things.

In general, there's little incentive to excel at Freescale, and it shows. As an employee coming from a startup purchased by Freescale, I was astounded by the 'survivor' culture in that the lifers accomplish as little as possible to get by and certainly don't think of doing something outside their stated work description. Some are such good survivors, they've managed to find a niche that has no deliverables, no accountability, and off of everybody's radar.

In chip fabrication in the group I was in, it was expected that there would be multiple full mask tapeouts before a saleable product would emerge, and everybody from the engineers to the middle management and even the business group managers treated this as normal,

And, of course, there is the politics of business group on group, competing for the same business / market slice; design groups in Asia, Israel, and the US all fighting to get their IP (and their job security) into the product, regardless of past performance, effeciency, or schedules. The spineless project managers would include all of the IP at times, just to not take sides or whatnot. On top of that, there's zero sense of accountability: design groups that fail continue to contribute their same failing work flow and products without abatement.

All in all, much of Freescale is doomed to failure, and its culture quickly beats out any initiative an employee had, and teaches them that 'going with the flow' is less painful and good enough to not get fired. It seems entirely set up to encourage free riding and spreading the risk amongst the populace.

It's a 'good place' to go out to pasture. Work your 40 on some mindless task you don't care about while your mind is on family or projects at home.

It's a horrible place for a fresh out to go to as you'll never know what working at a non-dysfunctional company is. You'll spend a few years there and end up with the stink that is Freescale stuck to you and be ruined for anything else.

Advice to Senior Management

Take the business units that work and spin them off as quick as possible. Or at the very least get them out of the main campus and culture. Your name is so tarnished in Austin that hiring of talent will become impossible, if it hasn't already happened. There's pockets of excellence at the company, but the company is holding them back and preventing them from shining.

Pros

Stability of some sort due to the nature and size of this company
TX has no state tax
 I do like their site cafeterias very much they offer SUSHI too
The business can be very exciting in regards to the possibilities
Employees are really intelligent

Cons

The resources that they expect their clients to use to be productive is pathetic at best.
The mindset there is wrong. Employees are very broken due to the lack of support there.
Lack of support equates to lack of innovation and caring.
People jsut care for their jobs and that paycheck.. and it is clear to see that.

Advice to Senior Management

To turn this around hold people responsible do not let responsible employees have to go out and buy resources so they can do their job. That is unprofessional of you and them to have to do that. It detracts them from their true job of innovation and promotion of good healthy work practices.
Give them the tools they need now and the support they need. I promise you the business will do more than run itself.

Pros

Location, TX has no income tax.

Cons

Lack of growth, cannot move to other companies in similar location

Advice to Senior Management

Manufacture in taiwan or china