Samsung Austin Semiconductor Reviews

Pros

The benefits are great and some of, if not, the best in the industry. The work schedule is also great.

Cons

It is a Korean company and as such it is managed differently and takes a while to adjust to it.

Advice to Senior Management

Overall management does a satisfactory job.

Pros

fantastic job experience, and u will learn lots of things

Cons

need to be more globalization

Advice to Senior Management

spend more money

Pros

Excellent benefits package and the salary is higher the industry standards.

Cons

Extremely poor treatment of employees and lack of training for new hires.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest more in employee development and be more open to the advice of your employees.

Pros

If you want to work hard and contribute the opportunity is there.

Cons

If you want to come in and just collect a pay check, no one will really challenge you.

Advice to Senior Management

Force the departments to work together and stop the finger pointing about who is at fault.

Pros

Stability, plenty of work for the forseeable future
Fast Paced and changing
Room to grow if willing to work for it

Cons

Lots of politics to get wrapped up in
Can be stressful at times
A mix of employees with bad attitudes
Poor communication

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate to your employees and get rid of the dead weight. Don't judge a group by one or two of it's workers. Stand up for your team and have their backs.

Pros

SAS provides a good learning environment. It is one of the most technologically advanced companies in the world and offers opportunities like no other.

Cons

Being an American branch of a Korean company offers several issues. The cultures clash severely. Americans have an attitude of work smart not hard, work efficiently and get it done faster, and if something is a miss or does not make sense, question it and try to find a better solution. Koreans work oppositely. They work long hours but are known to take naps and long breaks and they never question a command given from a senior. At SAS they try to blend these two cultures but as polar opposites they do not blend well. The workplace is filled with Great Work Place initiatives to try and make work better but as Americans working a 14 hour day all we tend to care about is getting home in the evening to spend time with our families, not the lunch hour once a quarter where we get to play video games in 105 degree heat but we miss out on anyway because we are too busy to take a lunch.

Advice to Senior Management

Leadership, Leadership, Leadership. The Korean culture of SAS breeds an environment where the cutthroat go-getters who will throw anyone under the bus to get ahead thrive. This leaves the company severely lacking in leadership. The leaders of SAS do not inspire, they do not motivate, they simply lead with fear.

Pros

There is definitely the opportunity to do a lot of highly technical work, however, that work will be micromanaged and twisted around until it is effectively worthless.

Cons

Management refuses to acknowledge differences between how business can be conducted in the USA versus Korea. This leads to a lot of difficulties and failed business goals.

Advice to Senior Management

Please, realize that holding American workers to impossible goals and making comparisons to Korean metrics that make no sense only disenchants workers.

Pros

Benefits are good, health insurance is really good, jobs are available for engineering technicians that work in semiconductors here when not many other such opportunities are available around Austin TX

Cons

If you come through the door as an entry level engineering technician count on it taking more than 4 years to get to your first promotion. Even with good performance reviews, pay rate will advance very slowly. Some supervisors can be extremely unprofessional towards technicians.

Pros

Good compensation for new college grads
Competitive benefits

Cons

No attempt at work/life balance
Korean/American culture clash leads to inconsistent policies
Management through fear
No career development
Actively recruiting lower quality employees, further increasing the load on experienced members.

Advice to Senior Management

You have lost credibility with your employees. You say you are trying to improve working conditions but the situation on the ground has not changed, further decreasing credibility. If you do not change your policies, everyone who can leave, will leave. But maybe senior management realizes they don't need smart people to Copy Exactly.

I am currently planning to leave for a consulting firm, where I will still work long hours but at least I'll be compensated for it.

Pros

Pay and benefits are alright not the best but alright. Bonuses are a plus. Challenging environment as in lots of areas to expand your horizons just don't expect anything but self gratification. Great location as Austin is a nice place to live, very hot at times but nice all around area. Samsung Austin Semiconductor does a lot for the local community and is a very good corporate citizen. The lunch program where they give you money to eat at the cafeteria is nice. On site gym is also nice not the best but pretty good for being free.5S,

Cons

They do awards for people but most of them being handed out seem like a joke and are usually people who are on the good old buddy system, very few are given to people who deserve it and alot are not given to people who actually do deserve it. Don't expect any decent raises out of this place. They do not practice what they preach and the people who do have poor interpretations of what it actually is ie. 5S, Six Sigma, lean and the many other programs upper management throws out there. They are a 24/7 organization but have no empathy for those who have to work nights as they do not schedule training that complement their shifts you get almost no support for nights from anyone. It seems that the Koreans do not care to share knowledge and support as they have information but will not share it. Do not expect to get any quality training on the equipment that you are required to maintain and improve. If you get on a night shift they give you a shift premium but good luck trying to get off of nights. Management does not provide quality or positive feedback to the employees but do provide a ton of negative feedback on everything. Management does operate off of feedback provided by the employees but make blind decisions. Management is just plain horrible they are disconnected from what is really going on and do not make any attempts or seem like they really care to either. Alot of management also have huge superiority complexes. There is alot of favoritism that goes on. This place continuously changes all the time and that can be annoying. The atmosphere that is built does not provide a feeling of job security or longevity. They really just need to replace almost all of the current supervisors as they are one of the biggest problems that makes this place not a very good one to work at. I have read alot of reviews on this site and they are all pretty accurate description of SAS currently. It used to be a good place to work and hopefully it will return but right now it is not all that good thanks to horrible supervision and horrible supervisors.

Advice to Senior Management

Please train the supervisors how to handle people. Enough with the negative feedback and negative reinforcements already. Listen to the employees. Also stop trying to play your mind games with employees and just let them know what you really want and your plans are. Most people just want to know what it is that is expected of them, do you plan on trying to keep a stable work environment and what can I do to ensure my success at the company as well as making the place they work for is successful.