KLA-Tencor Reviews in San Jose, CA Area

Current Employee – been working at KLA-Tencor full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Best and brightest people, hands down. Best technology and the technology groups always surpass expectations.

Cons – If you call it a down-side, you better be smart and motivated or go somewhere else. Some new college grad hires are first-rate while others are questionable, at best.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep advancing the strategy beyond anyone's ability to catch up.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at KLA-Tencor full-time for less than a year

Pros – Espresso and Latte machines in the cafeteria
Fun little perks like circus tickets for the family
Decent cafeteria
Competitive benefits

Cons – The usual large company burdens like lots of meetings, paperwork, and bureaucracy. Lots of forced time off but I was there during the bad years of that industry.

Advice to Senior Management – None

Former Employee – 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

Current Employee – been working at KLA-Tencor full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – High tech, Challenging, GYM and Friendly people

Cons – Too many managers , too many meetings (sometimes, meetings about meetings)
Too many bosses
Some managers need to take Interpersonal courses on how to deal with employees
Did I say too many meetings and too many managers around?

Advice to Senior Management – Do not alienate your employees,
Understand employee needs and adhere to company standards
have a better personal relationship with your subordinates

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at KLA-Tencor full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Challenging work
Interesting and talented people

Cons – work-life balance is not optimal

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at KLA-Tencor as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Lots of learning and hands on project. Good facility. Gym and table tennis. Lots of smart people around. People are very willing to help you if you need.

Cons – Too much work. No social life.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at KLA-Tencor full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Learnings,transparency,no discrimination and facilitates good networking

Cons – lack of growth and lack of cross-divisional opportunities

Advice to Senior Management – focus on employee growth

Current Employee – been working at KLA-Tencor full-time for more than a year

Pros – old corporate pay design; stock options, long term incentives, excellent health, dental, vision plans
highly skilled work force; 85-90% MS/PhD; provides educative atmosphere

Cons – travel for some jobs ranges between 50 and 90% so not suited for employees with young families;
old corporate design con is that the only way up is threw lots of experience and middle management stagnates

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at KLA-Tencor full-time for more than a year

Pros – Excellent, talented coworkers. KT tries to build a happy, healthy environment for employees.

Cons – At times work can be high stakes, high stress and requires short notice travel.

Advice to Senior Management – Find some way to compensate those who travel with little or no notice to customer and supplier sites to put out fires at great personal and familial sacrifice. Talented people are getting burned out and you can't afford to loose them.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at KLA-Tencor full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – - best cross functional teams i ever worked with
- great team dynamics. Individual contributors and first level managers are pro-active, smart, hard-working and always ready to jump in and solve problems
- very strong in processes, infrastructure and policies (could be a drawback at times)
- very detail oriented and project plans are very extensive and heavily scrutinized
- people are always willing to learn new things and push their limits to face new challenges
- very friendly and helpful peers
- great benefits, bonus and stocks
- fitness center rocks (esp the complimentary towel service!)
- cafeteria has good food options
- learning center has excellent courses (for both technical and personal development)

Cons – - senior management is more goal-oriented and less people-oriented
- some senior managers are extreme workaholics and set the tone for the team. This is causing morale to sink even lower as people are expected to work nights and weekends to meet deadlines that show up at the last minute
- all work and no play. Not many team outings as work stress and schedules are really packed.
- sometimes, it feels like you have to give an arm and a leg to get recognition or move up the career ladder. Depending on which division you work for, career growth could be non-existent

Advice to Senior Management – - encourage timely recognition and reward for employees who go above and beyond their duties to solve problems or get the job done
- be more people oriented and encourage individual contributors to speak up (they have lots to say)
- need more fun events to help team relax and de-stress
- avoid the super-hero culture. It is damaging to rest of the team
- dont take people's personal time for granted. People have a life outside work
- encourage a healthy work/life balance

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend