Freescale Semiconductor Reviews

Pros

Work life balance. Good management support

Cons

Compensation behind other companies in same market.

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

Freedom to enhance one's knowledge on subject matter. Used to have a lot of people with a ton of experience to learn from. People are easy to get along.

Cons

Total lack of communication from senior management. The current CEO had only one or two employee meetings in phoenix since he took over several years ago. Not a lot of options in terms of career growth. With the burden of huge debt, this CEO is content with keeping this company in the middle of the pile.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate. Be more engaged with employees.

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

Pretty good benefits with high starting paid time off of 4+ weeks. Management good for working with employees, overall friendly environment.

Cons

Constant cost cutting efforts, layoffs loom much of the time and general attitude of employees makes completing tasks difficult at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Share additional information with employees regarding high level strategy. Constant under-resourcing and fire-fighting are driving away good talent and leaving frustrated staff.

Pros

The local co-workers are very friendly

Cons

No effective trainings on o tools and projects;
Performance Management is useless;
The company target salary is the market value, but there isn't other semiconductors companies around. The is no difference between work here or in any other industry around.

Advice to Senior Management

To be more honest and clear during communications;
Do not buy a new job car when the company reports bad results;

Pros

Big company with a lot of things to learn

Cons

Innovation is declining after privatization

Advice to Senior Management

Hire good management