SanDisk Employee Reviews about "layoff"

Pros

Dynamic culture - company strives to be innovative, testing out products one after another. In the end, much of the products were duds. A more careful assessment would probably have yield better results. However, from an employee perspective, it's great to be in an environment that promotes innovation. Good visionaries from the CEO - truly a glass half full kinda guy. One would feel inspired by his enthusiasm and motivation. Though can't say the same for the rest of the execs.

Cons

Middle mgmt needs a lot of work - lack of training and promotion simply based on seniority both contributed to mediocracy in middle mgmt layer. Also too many mgmt layers A lot of deadweight - hopefully recent layoffs trimmed the fat (which should have been done long ago)

Pros

Most Profitable company I gave worked for. 30~40% gross margin is great. Technology oriented company.

Cons

Relation to Toshiba is weak point for engineers in Japan. Loosing technogy advantages is other weak point. Periodically layoff happened.

Pros

3 weeks vacation to start, but have to take 5 days PTO during Christmas closure. No sick days. Free gym, cheap food. Nice campus

Cons

Six re-orgs in a year. 2 layoffs. Products launched months before actually ready, firmware changes after customer quals. Unrealistic sales quotas. Management is out of touch with reality.

Pros

Low pressure, good place as a last job before retirement (if not hit by layoff first.... Western digital is known for its layoff)

Cons

Politics above technical. Being good at politics and in the right circle is more important than having good skills and contribution.

Pros

Very bright people work here. You will have the opportunity to learn and share the best of the best ideas from all over the world. There is a high value on helping each other through the challenges. Campus is very well run with many employee amenities and supports. IT staff support is exceptional. Good support for gaining educational advancement and participation in professional networks. Looks good on a resume. Opportunity to work in a place with amazing, exciting technology developing all around you.

Cons

Constant and illogical restructuring. In wake of M Systems acquisition, more and more key positions are either being moved to Israel or being replaced with Israelis. Meantime, there is a very inaccurate orientation given about how Americans - esp Silicon Valley teams - work. There appears to be a great deal of contempt for American counterparts. Information is not shared, thereby wasting endless time and effort only to have to do it again when information is finally revealed. Salary structure is low unless you're an engineer, Israeli or under the age of 35. It has become a decentralized company with each sub group having wildly different values, pacing, administration.and budget process. Little to no recognition for achievement. Outright resistance to promoting from within. Far more likely to hire from outside. This leads to resentment, loss of key relationships, delays due to learning curves on what the promises vs. the realities are of systems in place. Communication from management is canned and rarely responsive to what is going on at that moment. In a highly commoditized industry, SanDisk has some brilliant products that could make them leap ahead of the competition but the development, selling and building of these is left to chance and then only short lived. Customers have a love/hate relationship. Love the technology, hate the inconsistency of delivery on commitments. SanDisk needs a newer, American based, management team to take advantage of all of the opportunities of being a Silicon Valley based global company. Also needs to find itself and present that consistently across products and the globe. Strategically planned layoffs to avoid government review are one way of terrifying employees into silence. Need to stop exporting key functions and positions to Israel and India.

Pros

The company runs like a startup and there's a lot of chance to learn new skill sets.

Cons

Regarding engineering. The company is like a startup and the focus of the projects shifts abruptly every few months. There are constant reorgs and layoffs the past few years that it's terrible for morale. Work in my division goes unappreciated and I feel undervalued. Many teammates have left on their own. The only response from management is pretty much we have more work to do, now step up, all of you. I started out excited to work at a big well known company, now I am looking for an exit. The combination of reorgs and layoffs and work pressure without any appreciation is not a good thing. Granted the memory field is a fickle business that is highly sensitive to economic fluctuations. So try not to work for memory companies and especially not Sandisk.

Pros

Other employees tried hard to make it a decent place to work

Cons

Upper management does not care about the employees. Endless meetings/conference calls with no agenda and no direction. Same issues come up time after time with no resolution. Binge hiring when business is good followed by layoffs when business drops off. Re-orgs at the drop of a hat with no reasoning behind them. Continuous additions to the layers of management without adding employees at the level they are needed to get the job done. Everyone in operations is way over-worked.

Pros

May (I must repeat MAY) get to work on cutting-edge technology for Memory/System Design and FW Eng, nothing for rest. Talented people.

Cons

Favoritism, lack of effective execution, lack of vision, mediocre middle management lacking motivation and lack of talent-respect are top on the list. and one of worst place to work for S/W engineers. Favoritism is other name for the SanDisk Culture, and more so top management has a very different definition for it. Lot of other problems are because of it alone. Wrong people at wrong places make it even worse day by day. Top management is happy making plans after plans but fall short of execution and have new plans to start again. Hardly there is root-cause analysis, and if there is any no learning from it. Frequent shifting priority of projects, internal resistance over getting the priority for similar projects. No learning sharing platform. Too many bad acquisition over last few years, wasting big piles of cash. It survived till now just because it is in ever expanding Storage market and because of few amazing engineer who worked so hard over the years there. Middle management is mediocre, is a praise. They lack the ability to bring the best of engineers like enthusiasm and motivation, forget about innovation. Survival is all is in their attitude, action and words, which flows down throughout. Not much for talent retention, variable pay, and lack of plan for personal/professional growth. A lot of HR gimmicks but fall short in serving the results. Too many layoffs in last few years, being profitable and riding high displays most of stated above. No work life balance, as for some 'too much work' and for some 'too much life'.

Pros

The NAND department at least gave some free dinner during tapeout time.

Cons

Other engineering department could not care less if you're working late, there is no incentive and management is very pushy to get jobs done ASAP. Mediocre salary and no clear direction; We've had so many reorgs (2-3) and layoffs in the past few years. Rule of thumb is to expect layoffs as least once a year, followed by a new round of hirings. I guess they want to trim excess fat but do it often and the employees lose its morale.

Pros

The layoff package was descent but you have had to worked there over four years. That's about all I can say positively (and the fact that there's a 20 word minimum -- sorry, can't think of anything else good to say).

Cons

Management needs training on how to deal with people, and if they get training, they need stay awake during their courses. Managers play favorites waaaaay too much from my experiences. Some of management have horrible people skills. Maybe they're pressed too heavily from above, but that is caused by upper managements unrealistic expectations of their own abilities and from their own self expressed mistakes in forecasting.