Texas Instruments Reviews in Houston, TX Area

Pros

Very flexible hours, relaxed atmosphere, ability to work at own pace, profit sharing, employee stock purchase plan, great 401k and insurance benefits

Cons

seems unstable recently, disconnect from upper management at Houston site versus the Dallas site, more benefits are seen if an employee works in the Dallas metroplex

Pros

good for college graduates and entry level

Cons

No scope work is heavy and it is routine

Advice to Senior Management

Please dont do layoffs .. do inform prior to layoffs .... So people are get mentally prepared and start looking for another one

Pros

Diversified Culture and Innovative Technology

Cons

Limited Advancement after 5 years

Advice to Senior Management

Requires bettere strategic development for LRP (Long Range Plans) for Growth

Pros

Professional yet informal work culture; most groups work on a first-name basis. Family friendly, pretty flexible work hours, and not too high-stress.

Cons

Low pay; Low growth and low turnover in most groups leads to limited opportunity for development

Advice to Senior Management

Create more opportunities and programs that show younger employees a path forward in their career

Pros

Learned and strengthened tons of technical skills. The group I was in definitely works you hard but you definitely learn a lot about project management, problems solving, semiconductor theory (depending on your job function), presentation skills, and much more. I was definitely "in the trenches" and a workhorse there which has its pros and cons.

Cons

The group I worked in was definitely clique-ish. it was about who you knew and how well you knew them in most cases. There was not much room for advancement and it was hard to move laterally in the organization. In addition, not much praise was given to employees that did good at their jobs.

This may just be specific to my group so I won't say that this applies to all of Texas Instruments. I really didn't have an overall good experience in my group.

Advice to Senior Management

Make more opportunities for employees to move laterally and vertically. Better communication would be good too. I think TI Management at the mid-level was not good at communicating with their engineers.

Pros

+ Good Technology: TI has several good technology value propositions that make it a good place to work (and learn i.e. grow professionally).

There are a lot of people (or were when I worked there) who are senior, career TI'ers who will teach their juniors a lot. You need to find a good one, and see if you can work for one.

+ If you get in to the right group, you will be richly rewarded, because you get to work on new, challenging problems, and if you deliver, TI will compensate and promote well.

The key is to find a group where YOU can contribute. The group must do well too. Being in a group that doesnt, or your contributions are not visible is not going to help.

+ Good culture / work environment.

+ Honest: Never saw a need to do anything dishonest. Didnt do options backdating or other bad stuff.

+ Good benefits, although these days, like everywhere in USA runaway cost of health insurance is becoming an issue.

There is also a large selection of technologies and opportunities, being a large company. So there is a lot of scope to move around. A lot of folks I knew did so and were well rewarded for doing so.

The culture will reward achievements, albeit a certain type of acheivements.

+ There are good resources to learn, e.g. IEEE papers were free through the intranet.

+ Management is generally supportive of going to college for an advanced degree, though it must be a practical plan which works with your job.

+ Most managers will not complain about flex time, within reason.

Cons

- Tough to get out of the bottom pile: Your potential has something to do with getting recognized / promoted. But, being in the right place matters much more. If you don't get the good assignments (work on the new gee-whiz interface, some new platform etc) then you wont be rewarded. That will affect what you get paid, promoted etc.

- Silos and politics. Like every other big company, I imagine. This makes it tough to get through with game changing technologies which require working across silos. If a Sr. VP pushes it, of course it will happen. Question is, are they the closest to the customers needs? If not, they should listen to the people who are.

- Rather arbitrary and capricious promotion process for engineers: The tech ladder needs you to have a assignment that you can demonstrate some glamorous achievement to get promoted. If you don't have that, the tech ladder wont reward you for delivering solid results on whatever is important to your management. This de-correlation between the recognition and what your manager wants you to do, is a career killer.

e.g. If you work on a SW project - something - e.g. a compiler, then if you deliver generation after generation of compilers, it becomes a case of "What did you create that you deserve a promotion/recognition/whatever?"

The same think applies to HW folks too. If you don't invent a new circuit or something, you don't get recognized.

- Some bad managers, who cause people to leave.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Make it easier to link accomplishment to recognition. If folks work on things that are critical, ensure that they are rewarded. Even if stuff they work on is non-glamorous.

2. Create a system where people can clearly see the bad performing managers. And kick them out.

3. Stop promoting "DSP" or "Analog" or whatever flavor of the month. That is bad for morale. Promote a culture where people make good products for good paying customers and win business.

4. Cut down silos. There are too many.

Pros

This is a strong, growing company which offers excellent compensation packages to it's employees. I found management to be fair and hardworking. Strong management-employee relations. A good place to start your career.

Cons

Could increase benefits, as health care premiums continue to rise while benefits go down. Also, need to upgrade internal computer systems, working off last generation mainframes.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in infrastructure and training. While compensation is fair, top employees should be rewarded commensurate to their efforts. Overall, continue growth and look to use green industrial techniques.

Pros

1. Excellent Work Life Balance.
2. Salary above industry average.
3. Top Tier Employer with a history of innovation
4. Industry Recognition as working with the best.

Cons

1. Growth potential is severely limited depending on which organization you are located in.
2. Extreme penny pinching mode currently (I guess this is based on the current economy but then penny pinching was common even when times were good).

Advice to Senior Management

1. Some of the penny pinching going on is ridiculous. Remember this can reduce productivity.
2. Provide avenues of growth to your employees or you risk losing some of your employees.

Pros

Challenging work and variety of tasks. The people I worked with are very friendly and overall I had a great time

Cons

None, very satisfying and rewarding

Advice to Senior Management

thank you for supporting the us

Pros

Work/Life balance, challenging job roles, a great deal of resposibility as an individual contributor or manager. Opportunities to develop outside of your core funtional area. Somewhat easy to move between business units when opportunities present themselves

Cons

Typical work week is baselined at 50-55 hours and goes up from there. Response time from management on rewards for hard work or project completion are either non-existent or not on the level they should be. In certain areas it seems that 20% of the people are really driving 80% of the execution and performance.

Advice to Senior Management

Strategies tend to focus on financial performance, which is necessary, but at TI this appears to be done at the expense of the employee in terms of work/life balance and lack of recognition.