Samsung Semiconductor Reviews

Pros

There is a good chance you will be given a broad amount of responsibilities early on in your career. Benefits are better than average. Experienced engineers tend to make better than average salaries.

Cons

All levels of management rely on fear and negative reinforcement to motivate employees. Work/life balance is basically impossible to establish without taking a hit on your review. Management does not seem to have a proper background or training to be in the positions that they are in. Cost reduction measures include layoffs which are cleverly disguised as performance based ultimatums, in order to save face with the media.

Advice to Senior Management

Think of employees as people instead of pieces of mobile process equipment.

Pros

Samsung is a great introduction to Corporate America, and in particular, the manufacturing industry, with a Korean twist. You will not be spared the pressure to perform, the ups and downs of an industry some consider to be dying (Semiconductors), and the extreme bureaucracy of a large company. You also will meet a variety of ambitious people looking to suck up enough and endure enough nonsense to get promoted every two years. Fortunately if you work extremely hard or speak up loudly and often enough (even if you don't know what you're talking about), then you can move up. The best things about this company are that most people there are very smart and committed to their jobs; slackers don't last too long, and especially not under today's scrutinizing economy.

As a person who can appreciate the best in all cultures, I found it very beneficial to go visit Korea and learn how people around the world live just Americans. Parents have the same best hopes for their kids, and they will sacrifice a lot to give to their kids. The work life/balance in Korea definitely leans more towards work, and Samsung Semiconductor accurately reflects that.

Just know what you're getting into.

Cons

Long hours. Conditions are not extreme, not investment banking or anything like that, but a steady 50-60 hours per week is very standard. If you're in a production group, expect to get be responsible for equipment or a process at ALL hours of the night, and to get paged about it. The rules and procedures set up to keep people from making mistakes can be very stifling and frustrating. Expect directives from upper management that will tax with you often meaningless tasks. They are only meant to exemplify the person who gave the directive. Also, I've heard that if you have achieved a high level of technician or engineer, don't expect to go anywhere but the semiconductor industry and earn a comparable amount of money.

Advice to Senior Management

Seek anonymous feedback from your employees. Don't be so extreme with cost cutting measures.

Pros

Benefits. That will be the best reason. They cover a wide range of benefits but now with the economy issues we are getting cut on benefits to be able to survive 2009. Health, vision and dental untouched. 401k reduced. No overtime.

Cons

Promotions are based on "due promotions" not by how hard you work. You have to impress Korean management to move up before your due date. 3 years usually.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote according to who is the best and promote employees who really care about their job. You can tell who is who if you really pay attention.

Pros

pay is very good compared to industry standard. Work schedule is also very nice, working 3 or 4 days a week

Cons

Sr. level management. does not appreciate it's most valuable asset...it's employees. Hire more experienced managers instead of good old boys. Corporate culture is the worst I have ever seen.

Advice to Senior Management

75% need to be replaced. Your equipment is not your most valuable asset. Don't be disrespectful. Just because you are at a higher level does not give you the right. Treat people how you want to be treated....and for god's sake stop promoting your buddies and promote the most qualified people even if they have a different view then yours. There are alot of was to manage and get things done.

Pros

Lots of responsibility. Good place for entry level engineers - they get a lot of training that can be useful throughout a career in the semiconductor biz.

Cons

Korean mgmt not in touch with local work force. HR is not empowered to make real changes - everything is tightly controlled by Korean dispatchers.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote/hire some locals into top management. Listen to HR.

Pros

Like most companies of it's type, SAS uses the compressed workweek model for scheduling, and I can' tsee anything wrong with 2 four-day weekends in a month.

Most of the people I work with are at least tolerable, and I've met some really great people at work as well.

Cons

Those four-day weekends usually aren't really all yours. Overtime is basically required to complete the most basic of assignments, and now with the economic crunch, you have to do more with less time.

Communication from management to the floor of what the goals of the team should be is very muddled and incoherent. Job expectations are vague on a good day and completely random on others. Everything that happens is the most important thing I've ever been assigned, so projects often get started and then put on the side when something else comes up.

Recent shift in the structure of the pay scale significantly reduces opportunities for advancement.

Recognition from management is scarce. When it does happen, they take a very elementary approach and give the majority of people some sort of recognition, so those who truly stand out get lost in the sea of praise.

Advice to Senior Management

Pull your tail from between your legs and realize that although we pay what amounts to a franchise fee to Korea, we are not a Korean company. A vast majority of the low and mid-level employees are American, and we don't like being treated like we are second rate because Hang-gul isn't our native tongue.

Pros

The pay and benefits are above average for the industry; however, benefits were recently reduced. Vacation time is well above standards, starting at 4 weeks per year and increasing steadily to around 6 weeks as time with the company increases. The dental plan is extremely good and the medical plan is average with only a small contribution required from the employee. Also, the company offers a compressed work week schedule in addition to the normal 1st shift, which provides a four day weekend every other week for some. The camraderie amongst coworkers is generally high, but that will depend on your department.

Cons

Unfortunately, those aforementioned benefits are shrinking: insurance copays are going up, 401k matching has dropped from the equivalent of 4% to 2%, bonuses have been suspended, shift differentials have shrunk, tuition assistance has been pulled, etc...The semiconductor market is cyclical and we are entering hard times. Samsung says they don't have layoffs, but they do... they just hide them behind a mandatory number of poor reviews and then let the "poor performers" go. The whole performance review process is a joke. In order to promote someone they have to write someone else up, to keep things balanced. This bell curve mentality may have some merit in the larger departments, but in the smaller groups it just leads to performance evaluations that are far from fair. If you hang in there, you will get promoted (when your turn comes up) based on longevity, you will also get unfairly low scores (when your turn comes up) to facilitate someone else's promotion. It is difficult to keep up morale in our environment. Advancement through the technician ladder will also eventually stall and for those wishing to transfer over to the salaried engineer workforce, you can make it happen, just expect a large pay cut to go along with this "lateral move". If you do make that move expect to leave within a couple of years, engineers have a hard life at Samsung and nearly two-thirds of new engineers leave after they get two years experience in the job title. Finally, the clean room suits, which are a mandatory part of life in any semiconductor fab are uncomfortable. More so at Samsung than elsewhere as this company runs a warmer fab than its competitors. Saves money on air-conditioning, but results in a sticky plastic suit plastered to the sweat on the back of one's neck. The sense that the company does not care about you is much greater at Samsung than anywhere else I've ever worked,except perhaps with the military. Same idea as the military actually, great coworkers and comrades, but everything in your work life is somehow not in the hands of your manager, but rather the result of decisions made by HR or senior management or whatever nameless, faceless entity can be blamed. Also, like the military, do not expect your responsibilities to fall entirely within your job scope, you may very well juggle high level responsibilities and the most menial of tasks. Finally, communication from down the chain is horrible. No one knows what is going on outside of an extremely efficient rumor mill. We recently had a major maintenance evolution, which everyone had heard talked about, but no one had been officially told to enact. It was a mess. Furthermore, you can expect your management to make promises it can't or won't keep, then blame the failure to honor those promises on others.

Advice to Senior Management

If you have to lay people off, just lay them off, don't hide them behind unfairly low performance reviews. In the same vein, get rid of mandatory low reviews. If a department gives all of its employees high marks, let it happen, just divide the performance increase budget accordingly (I should note that my last review was above average and that I am safe from a layoff (at least more secure than most); nevertheless, I am leaving voluntarily for another industry). Senior management should also improve communications down the chain. Be honest about what you are doing and why and communicate those decisions in a timely manner.

Pros

Only Place left in Austin that was making money in semiconductors until lately.

Cons

Benefits not in line with other semiconductor companies even before they were cut recently.

  Pay OK , most likely due to someone trying to make up for lack of benefits and the desire to get qualified competent managment and engineers into a workforce made up mainly of SAMSUNG Austin trained junior engineers and supervisors.

  Mostly junior engineers working here and turnover is quite high. Junior engineers keep cost low but make major mistakes and since most have not worked anywhere else there is no point of reference for them in the industry. Samsung attempts to make up for this by having Korean engineers help out in the here. Most Korean engineers are extremely competant however there is almost a dual effort on every project. The American effort, usually lagging behind on information from Korea and the Korean effort which is up to date from Korea and informs the US side whenever they get around to it. A complete waste of resources.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop dual efforts on every project , reduce reliance on "dispatchers"

Also, Instead of getting rid of the lower rated employees join the real world and call a layoff a layoff and stop saving so much face.

Pros

Good pay and benefits. Leading edge technology which exceeds competitors. Excellent long-term survival in difficult DRAM and NAND flash market

Cons

Samsung way is company first, everything else second. Usual day is at least 12-14 hours long and weekend (Saturday) is a usual 4-5 hour affair. The stress of incessant work and curtailed family life can lead to health issues and is a reason for extremely high attrition rate. It is not unusual to see people fleeing in droves as work hours increase and other opportunities arise. Not a lot of very experienced people from other companies, as they leave after 2-3 years for less strassful pastures. This leaves a lot of inexperienced personnel trying to solve complex issues with subsequent impact on all aspects of production.

Advice to Senior Management

All work and no play makes for short-term employees

Pros

Out of the semiconductor world this would probably be the most stable company. The employees are great and many people are good friends outside of work.

Cons

Too many hours, too little pay, poor communication from managerment, very little real engineering work done here

Advice to Senior Management

Promote a healthy work/life balance and create a culture of improvement versus the culture of copying direct from our Korean fabs.