Spansion Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Spansion full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Company makes available training and resources to advance your career. Filled with great co-workers and fun management. Has a diverse skill set need, which allows for learning and growth.

Cons – In bankruptcy the executive team was replaced with great motivated members. Those below them have not moved in years, and most plan to retire out of their current role. This has created roadblocks for change. Limited growth potential for career oriented workers and fear + territorial behavior for those at the top.

Add in forced distribution ranking where mangers fail to read goals and performance to expectation, and you have disfunction. Those at the top are self ranking each other via hand shake, and people who are perceived as a threat, are ranked out of contention.

Executive management made the changes necessary to generate success, but failed to push the changes into all ranks. Spansion is now a glass ceiling company. If you work there you will know when you hit the glass, and depart.

Current strategy is to replace high level exiting engineers with new college graduates. This will generate 5 years of growth potential for the new hires. Issue in the policy is those at the top will not mentor up, becasue of a "see you still need me" job protection mentality.

Advice to Senior Management – Capitalize on potential. Force retired on the job workers back to work, or lose those around them who are being tasked with completing open projects. You created a lean employee company. Now you have to follow through with getting the right people on the bus, and removing those who no longer belong.

I have sat in too many meeting where a senior manager says "I am doing this because I was told I have too not because I believe it is the right direction", and then later comes back to voice the initiative as a total failure.

When rolling out benifits changes stop saying we strive to be average. Use smart speech. "We work hard to meet industry santards" or " as benchmarking is completed we align the company to be competative." Telling employees you provide average benefits but require exceptional performance is not the message you want to send.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Spansion full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great manager and thus a great organization to work with, Our MD know everyone by their name and go down to production floor frequently. The people in the organization make it a great place to work at.

Cons – Unstable financial situation causing frequent force leave and eventually the closing of some of the branch

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Spansion full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – There is plenty to be happy about at Spansion from a business performance perspective. With positive cash flow for consecutive quarters, it is clear that the executive team (post bankruptcy) know what they are doing, however heartless and greedy they have been while doing it.

Cons – The manufacturing facility is aging and so is the management. There are no opportunities for growth or career progression, as the mid-management team has been set in stone for over a decade. Idle mid-"managers" do a poor job of rewarding excellence and refuse to manage out poor performers.

Advice to Senior Management – Clean house

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Spansion full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Austin team has tons of experience.

Cons – No opportunities for growth in the company

Advice to Senior Management – Hire more people

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Spansion full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – flexible work hours, average benefits

Cons – short of manpower, too many projects

Advice to Senior Management – focus

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Spansion full-time for more than a year

Pros – small team, good work, good learning,

Cons – no benefits, no bonus, conventional (no WFHs), longer promotion cycle, not willing to take risks at all, random shutdowns

Advice to Senior Management – Management should solve their financial issues with newer and better products rather than giving employees unnecessary forced shutdowns.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Spansion full-time for more than a year

Pros – - improving product portfolio by diversifying it
- good opportunities for working on new products
- competitive salary

Cons – - Financially just OK, although they have shown profit in all but one quarters since bankruptcy.
- Not many social activities organized at work.
- Needs some young people.

Advice to Senior Management – - employees may need more motivation

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Spansion full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Have had a good set of direct managers - fair and easy to work for.
Telecommuting options.
Very nice onsite cafeteria in Sunnyvale.
Good benefits, focus on health, training offered/encouraged.
Management communication is very good.
Bonus plan.

Cons – After much downsizing, really not any room to grow in the department or transition to other area.
I struggle with the lingo of a chip manufacturing company, that was not my background, so some times the corp info and training examples are all Greek to me.
Too much forced vacation going on.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep communicating well.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Spansion full-time

Pros – very good and friendly working environment

Cons – management is not so impressive

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Spansion full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – 1. work-life balance. for people who have kids this is a great place to work for because you can use your kids as excuse to go home early and take days off. single people can't do either of those.
2. most people are nice people, but not all.

Cons – 1. bad senior management. there is absolutely no (or little) respect for engineers or people who actually do the work.
2. no career advancement. there are way too many vps and managers in this company so unless they get fired there is no way people can get promoted.

Advice to Senior Management – need to learn to treat the employees with respect.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend