SanDisk Reviews

Pros

Strong brand, international scope and diversity, good gym in Milpitas, excellent annual international fair at HQ, cool technologies

Cons

Business strategy is short sighted and does not unify workforce.

Significant pattern of racial bias with job promotions, layoffs, and reorgs; strong bias toward Israelis for business unit leadership; recent shift toward exclusive hiring, retention, and promotion of Indians in IT - both onshore and off-shore

Uninspired leadership

Advice to Senior Management

Step 1 - acknowledge that you have serious problems

Pros

- some very smart leaders
- good facilities and convenient location
- innovative history and company coasting due to rich past
- friendly coworkers, some very good talent
- slowly becoming innovative in marketing approach with fresh talent and thinking
- great sushi on wed

Cons

- ugly politics but expected in a large company. but still a bit more political than most
- some very incompetent leadership with no justification for them in their current roles

Advice to Senior Management

continue to innovate while supporting legacy and staple products. continue to recognize the importance of brand preference but dont spend money unwisely like some marketing projects in the past.

Pros

Competitive salary and benefits
Great work location and environment, with fitness club and restaurant on-site
Opportunity to travel worldwide
Great core IP

Cons

Still acts like a startup after more than 20 years
Engineering execs can't grasp importance of marketing
Products sometimes launched without consumer/customer research
Acquisition of M-Systems hasn't helped the company
Business unit model and reorgs not working
Management positions very political -- most held by Israelis formerly of M-Systems
Growth strategy based on never-ending demand from consumers for more memory, but when is enough enough?

Advice to Senior Management

Bring in a professional business manager to run the company

Pros

- room for own initiatives
- lots of responsibilities
- friendly and helpful co-workers
- good work area

Cons

- lots of politics and fading vision after M-Systems acquisition
- unstable organization, ongoing changes, continuously but unsuccessfully in search of 'the right way'
- demanding and over-confident corporate culture
- lack of career path and support

Advice to Senior Management

Prioritize relevant and up-to-date knowledge and skills over who knows who

Pros

-Great pay for an intern
-Lots of independence in choosing hours and work route
-Management is not looking over your shoulder 24/7; you are given a task and expected to complete it timely and competently

Cons

-Not enough direction in assigning tasks
-Very little training given to interns
-Little to no feedback on job performance makes it difficult to improve and grow professionally

Advice to Senior Management

Continue the Field Marketing Intern program, but provide more direction and expectations to interns. More training would also make the program more effective

Pros

Latest technology, lots of work, lots to learn, great co-workers.

Base salary is so so, bonus if paid is nice (none if not making money), stock option is too late because no more for new employees.

Cons

Bias in compensation toward upper management.
Burn out junior engineers without growing them in career.
Politics between MSystem and SanDisk team
Not caring too much about side effect of outsourcing toward quality and schedule

Advice to Senior Management

Lower level to mid level management: not too shabby
Upper level management: Think about being fair when you allocate all of the stock options for higher up.

Think about your hiring of low cost junior staff and burn them out, then let them quit.

Think about out-sourcing not really saving any money by slipping behind schedule.

Pros

The world leader in flash memory produces industry-leading, high-quality products; B2B and B2C opportunities, truly global company and global perspective.

Cons

Politics like nothing I've experienced in 20 years. Also, the executive team from MSystems (an acquisition) now runs the company -- if you're not from MSystems, you chance for advancement is limited. The good marketers don't stick around here long. I

Advice to Senior Management

Why did you replace most of your executive team with leaders from the MSystems, who in some cases had no experience in the area they are expected to manage. Also, think about the message it sends to existing memebers of the marketing team feel when every single new hire in marketing comes from the same company -- Seagate.

Pros

I enjoyed working for a company with a GREAT product line. I also had a lot of respect for the CEO, Eli Harari

Cons

Upper management went about their business without ever consulting the middle man who may have good ideas, solutions or both.

Advice to Senior Management

Ask the people in the trenches their opinion when making major decisions. Surveys are always a good source or get a committee to research what the "little" people believe. We have to suffer the consequences when bad (business units) decisions are made.

Pros

Good leadership, intersting work, great people.

Cons

Difficult in IT. Most of the IT work is being outsourced and there is not much of a transition plan.

Advice to Senior Management

The quarterly meetings are great. The last few years in IT have been a struggle. There were lots of changes in directions that have been abandoned. Seems like a waste of time and money.

Pros

Great workplace with nice people and good benefits.
Financially it is a stable company with some great growth opportunites such as SSD market.

Cons

Senior management lacks direction
Frequent re-orgs happen
Most products are becoming commodity or getting behind the competition.
There are no clear career paths.
Shutdowns determine your holiday schedule, not you.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior managements needs to figure out a stable way to grow the company and they need to reduce the number of middle management layers.