Maxim Integrated Products Reviews in Portland, OR Area

Pros

Always something to work on or calibrate, daily routines and co-workers that bonds to achieve a common goal which makes the environment very pleasant!

Cons

Not to mention any particular group, a couple of people poison the area of operations to the point that they use DRAMA to mask their laziness.

Advice to Senior Management

A piece of advice from a hard-working, multi-fnctional,multi-area, well proven equipment specialist who would do anything for the greater good of the company, remove the sour apples that's beginning to rotten the whole basket before there is no one is at your table at the market!

Pros

Good business model. Initially granted ability to change, create, improve. Decent benefits and bonus program. Talented group of co-workers that would work long hours for the joy of creating quality work.

Cons

Drastic change in work environment over last few years. Tyrannical upper management. Lack of trust in the organization. All emphasis on negatives. Loyal employees no longer fit new organizational model.

Advice to Senior Management

Pounding on a table during meetings is generally not a good motivational tool. Some positive reinforcement is a good thing. Take a good look at why morale is so bad at so many locations.

Pros

Benefits, people, type of work,.

Cons

Growth potential, salary, middle management is very weak.

Advice to Senior Management

do your job right. take care of the employees in compensation and recognition in a timely manner before they get frustrated and lose interest.

Pros

Maxim has its share of exceptional engineers and a diverse mix of products. You can work on radio frequency chips or on battery management chips. It uses it own fabs and processes but also uses outside foundries when needed, so there is a lot of flexibility. The work is interesting. Stock options now go only to directors and above, but the compensation (salary, bonus, ESPP, RSUs) and benefits (insurance, 401K match) are still good.

Cons

Management is more technical than inspirational. The CEO's speeches are soporific. Consultants have been hired to schedule projects and compress schedules. There is little to no dead time to learn or explore. Headcount is kept at a minimum to keep costs down. It's not a sweatshop, but there are days when it feels like one.

Pros

A hard worker, that pays attention to detail will be enjoying a long term job with Maxim. The future appears sound.

Cons

Leads and Supervisors lack leadership skills needed to be affective. Time is not provided to improve work area problem areas or documents, even though it is part of the company's mission statement. Productions is constantly operating short hand. There is no profit sharing for the production staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Train your lead and supervisors. Improve/include production's input on area design and orginization. Give the production staff profit sharing in line with the rest of the industry.

Pros

The job security is pretty good since the business is doing well because of the demand.
Innovation is emphasized a lot in the recent years.

Cons

As in some other companies, MAXIM currently has a lot of office politics going on. If you are not that kind of person, it may not be good for you.

Advice to Senior Management

Management of fear is not the way to go.
With the options gone, people are not going to stay and endure bad management.

Pros

You can make a difference if you work hard and smart you can contribute to the bottom line. Pay is competitive but gone are the days when the wealth of the company was shared with the employees.

Cons

Strong:Good ole boy network, Politics, Untrained managers
Weak: Morale, Morale, Morale

Advice to Senior Management

Vision and Leadership is what is needed. Have the courage to do what you believe needs to be done.

Pros

Challenging work, autonomy, profession and skilled coworkers, most everyone tries to cooperate and work together.

Cons

Slow to react to issues, some management tends to micromanage, layers of approvals to get things done, limited room for advancement and professional development.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect the employees, they are your most valuable asset

Pros

Stock options when they were good. That was the only incentive that kept many talented individuals in keeping up with the ridiculous management system. Once that dried up, the circus became more evident with clowns jumping from one pole to another.

Cons

1. They have close to 2 billion in cash. Let they were sickeningly stingy for no reason.
2. A bunch of insecure individuals with low self esteem ran the organization. They called their lack of trust of anyone as micromanagement.
3. Too much analysis was done to make arbitrary decisions at the end.
4. The system is/was full of psychofants and politicians who exploited the conditions to do minimal work and direct all work to those who were honest and ethical.
5. Too much of bureaucracy and red tape.
6. The manufacturing system did everything in anti-thesis to how a company should be run.
7. Poor decisions were made on many occasions that led to tremendous loss in efforts, energy and material. The company was pushing people to save money on one side, but were making cheap quality product as a result.
8. Too much nepotism and favoritism.
9. If you work hard, forget about promotions or job satisfaction. Your hard work is what the company wants and if they reward you, there is no one to replace you. So you stay where you start.
10. The company has managers with no one reporting to them.
11. A very frustrating environment with tempers running high.
12. There is no respect for your education. If you are politically skilled and can project lies well, you get all goodies.
13. Maxim has survived this long because of the market they are in. Any amount of abuse is still paying.
14. None of their new process flows work. The company makes most of the money through age old mid eighties CMOS process technology.
15. There are too many cranky directors and higher level managers.
16. This place is a gulag. Look for a job elsewhere.

Advice to Senior Management

Get yourself fired please so that the good people who are left can do an honest job. None of you have any management skills and have made it to the top by political means.

Pros

It's a job! Benefits are whats keeping most of the employees there right now.

Cons

Managements lack of training in working with the employees. They push the employees to the limit and push even harder for more out of you. Unfair employee practices. Horrible work environment.
All the VP gave themselves huge bonuses. The employees have received no incentives for the last two years.

Advice to Senior Management

Too many Managers,supervisors, engineers & engineer tech sitting around doing nothing. Lose a few! And get the rest into some work shops on how to be professional.