Fun place to work but not financially rewarding due to company's current financial woes (Feb 2009). - Senior Member of Technical Staff AMD Employee Review

4.0
Feb 26, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

One of the best reasons to work at AMD is the people and the core projects. AMD is developing cutting edge CPU and GPU products that are very competitive in the market place. You will work with some very smart people and have a good time doing so. Its nice when a project you worked so hard on makes it into the hands of millions of people and you know you played a part in the success. However, thats about where it ends. AMD is going through some very tough times financially where some of it is due to bad economic times, lack of execution on some key CPU products, and the acquisition of ATI. Due to this employees are hit with cut-backs such as 10% salary cuts, no promotions, bonuses, etc. These are temporary and many successful companies have gone through these kinds of cut-backs including Intel. However, the senior leadership seems to be making some good choices about how to manage this. For example, they are executing very well on an initiative called Asset Lite and have been selling off non-core businesses and have started a new company to run the fabs. These initiatives are helping to reduce the overall debt and keep more people with jobs.

Cons

AMD is not doing well financially and this trickles down to the employees such as 10% salary cuts, no match on 401k, etc. Also, the health care benefits suck.

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5.0
Jun 26, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

work life balance, good team

Cons

fast releases, no much events

4.0
Apr 13, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's a big company. So, a lot of great benefits and high pay. Also, a lot of opportunity for career advancement and internal transfers if a particular job/team doesn't fit (to avoid losing RSUs). Plus, they're not too hard on you regarding performance since all the performance reviews are qualitative rather than quantitative (that could be both a pro and a con, honestly).

Cons

It's a big company. So, a lot of bureaucracy. They get in the way of themselves requiring endless approvals for spending. Also small organizations within AMD being territorial about their particular domain rather than being as open as possible inhibits rapid progress. Also, pushing for "diversity and inclusion" is racist. They should ignore race, not try to have a representative sampling of the population. I give them a low score there because DEI is racist. But not minimal because it's only something the HR dept cares about, normal employees effectively ignore race from what I can tell. So even if management is woke, the company (the individuals) are not.

2
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