Novellus Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Novellus

Pros – Fast turn around design to production

Cons – ECO and drawing are outsorucing oversea

Advice to Senior Management – Keep R&D in San Jose don't outsorucing

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Novellus

Pros – The field is the place to be with compressed work week. Better pay now that we are hourly. New products are sometimes leading edge.

Cons – Benefits have been going down hill. New products are often not ready when presented to the customers. Too much focus on some failed products.

Advice to Senior Management – The people make you a success and you should remember to look down the ladder once in a while instead of just up.

Current Employee – been working at Novellus

Pros – Good Benefits, lots of opportunity to gain additional knowledge and career growth.

Cons – Long work hours, company runs very lean

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Novellus

Pros – Novellus is the leader in its field. Many employers at Novellus are well known and respected academically and professionally. Novellus encourages innovation, patents, and publications from its employers.

Cons – Working at Novellus can be hard sometimes, which provides a challenge for balancing work and personal life. Stress also creeps in to the work placeas deadlines have to be meant.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Novellus

Pros – Compressed work week is great.
For not having a degree, the pay is not bad.
Medical benefits are pretty good.
Profit sharing is nice when it happens.

Cons – Multiple medical insurance cost increases over the last few years. Elimination of HMO option.
Stock purchase plan was cut a few years ago.
Car allowance was cut a couple of years ago.
Slow to promote and give raises.

Because of the above items, after 7 years with the company, my take home pay is now less than it was when I started. Then factor in inflation, the cost of gas, etc and I'm worse off than when I started with the company...

Advice to Senior Management – Spend a few extra dollars to take care of your employees - And I mean more than a lame team activity once a quarter, or pizza at company meetings, those don't carry much weight with us. We know you have plenty of cash in the bank and it wouldn't take much to make us happy. We see how many stock options the senior management get and how much they sell them for - and that only serves to anger us further.

I don't know about other departments, but Field Service is on the verge of revolt, moral is in the dump and you can bet that as soon as the economy picks up, many of us will be moving on to other companies. Some of us are actively looking right now and have promising leads...

Bring back the car allowance and stock purchase plan - some of your competitors still offer them and it would go a long way toward bridging the gap that has been created.

Give out some promotions and raises of more than 1 - 2 % every other year.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Novellus

Pros – Novellus offers very competitive compensation and benefits, as well as very smart people to work with. The tools and equipment available, as well as logistical support in general, is top notch.

Cons – Novellus, as well as the semiconductor industry in general, is extremely competitive. 12 hour days for salaried workers were not uncommon, depending on what group you worked in. The company in general is fairly formal and extremely work oriented. They expect you to work hard, and work long hours. A side effect is that they don't provide that much opportunity to relax and have fun.

Advice to Senior Management – No idea. As an intern I did not see enough of management to be able to judge it.

Current Employee – been working at Novellus

Pros – good relationship among coworkers, professional & knowledgable coworkers

Cons – Not a big company so that career development opportunities are limited

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Novellus

Pros – Reasonable pay
Traditional benefits though I don't know if that is still true,
Year end bonus if company exceeded goals.

Cons – Engineering and management are employees, most others are contractors that aren't eligible for benefits or bonus. Absolutely no consideration for work life balance. They demanded 60 hours/week for 8 or 9 weeks out of every 13 week production cycle. There were constant layoffs and hiring, you could never feel secure. Rick Hill has disdain for operating in the USA. He has said in interviews he wants to move operations overseas.

Advice to Senior Management – Novellus should be bought out by another company.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Novellus

Pros – Very interesting and complex mechanical engineering/design ProE CAD work on their products. Their systems are large semiconductor capital equipment, so there is a variety of systems that an engineer works on or is exposed to.

Cons – Ridiculous schedule demands, requiring long hours, that must be might which sacrifices your personal life time. Even though you are a salary employee, Novellus does not support comp time off for the extra hours you put in. The company runs lean, so there are usually no additional resources to support an extremely aggressive schedule; therefore it is generally left up to one individual to meet these goals.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Novellus

Pros – Novellus offers plenty of room for growth if you have the desire to move up.

Cons – Manufacturing work long hours and days.
Management is slow to recognize and promote talented employees, many top talent end up leaving.

Advice to Senior Management – Try harder to recognize and compensate top talent fairly so that they will stay at Novellus.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend