Freescale Semiconductor Reviews in Austin, TX Area

Pros

Good to learn from other people, they are willing to help
Solid place for silicon design and verification

Cons

The management is a little bit tough
Career grownth is not clear
Life and work balance is not easy in this place

Advice to Senior Management

How to make plan is very important

Pros

- Skilled and cooperative co-workers. It was a pleasure to work with my team. Smart guys.
- My immediate manager was great. Skilled and tried to find career development opportunities
- Great health insurance package

Cons

- Total disrespect from senior management. Previous CEO once even told an engineer at a public meeting, "If you want better benefits go work at the Post Office".
- During recent IPO senior managers received stock options, but the workforce received..... key chains. Seriously.
- No chance for advancement
- No chance for career development
- No raises or bonuses for years, even with strong annual reviews
- Low pay

Advice to Senior Management

They know what's needed by engineers, but outsourcing and importing H-1B workers removes incentives to treat people decently. They don't care because they don't have to care.

Pros

Even with the great exodus of talent, there are some incredible people still hanging around.

Cons

Greed by investors and upper management has left the company with huge debt burdens. The only solution seems to be constant staff reductions which further erode the talent pool. 50-55 hour work weeks are normal as company circles the drain.

Advice to Senior Management

Eliminate a layer (or two) of upper management. This would allow for a lot more people that actually contribute to the bottom line

Pros

Good paid time off, starting at 4 weeks per year.

Cons

Salaries are frozen more often than not. At best you can expect a 2-3% raise every 3-4 years. The only real way to get a substantial pay increase is to leave and then come back a few years later. Bonuses are often frozen or cut, and bonus goals are not published so you don't know how you are doing until the results are in. Employees did not get any stock compensation from the recent IPO -- they handed out keychains instead.

Advice to Senior Management

You have a lot of talented employees. How long do you think they are going to stick around if you refuse to pay them market compensation?

Pros

Interesting technology (several different processor architectures) and a chance to work with people around the world (India, China, Israel and the U.S.) Many very strong technical people.

Cons

Freescale was an extremely bureaucratic organization. It was very difficult to get management approval for even small expenditures and the engineering team had a host of program and product managers from different business units asking them independently for status on a daily or hourly basis.

Advice to Senior Management

GIve people more autonomy and control over their work and budgets and have fewer people able ot say no to new initiatives.

Pros

Work/Life balance is a plus

Cons

Under resourced at this time. When revenue comes back I recommend filling posistions and projects.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure to keep up feedback to employees and promote within the company to make the
culture more enjoyable.

Pros

- Great Work life balance at FSL.
- Good work culture and team settings.
- Great information, well organized
- Advanced methodology compared to peers in the industry
- Management fairly transclucent about infomation.
- Great medical or health and other employee benefits.

Cons

- Need more aggressiveness in the market place.
- Privaty equity acquisition debt.
- Compensation and options.

Pros

Opportunities to try different roles

Cons

Slow growth in Austin headcount

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work.

Pros

Paycheck and health benefits are the best reasons to work at Freescale. Due to poor business climate, every year was wrought with the fear of layoffs.

Cons

It became obvious that the main concern of management was to protect their own jobs. The folks that got hammered during the many layoffs were most often the most qualified and long time employees.

Advice to Senior Management

The management team at Freescale needs to show more respect to the individual contributors. They also need to communicate better to employees and have a clear path for future growth. Management needs to get on the ball, be pro-active instead of reactionary.

Pros

Great people and skill sets

Cons

Management not looking long term

Advice to Senior Management

Loyalty and employee value should be rewarded