Applied Materials reviews

Those legendary leaders of the past failed to see the writing on the wall which was the transformation / maturation of the industry. By the late 90's the leaders needed to begin the process of leaning the company out to match what was coming. The so called dot-com bubble made for one last economic party. The legendary leaders were so completely rich via stock options / bonuses / salary that any motivation to start the really hard process of transforming the company was gone. The very top level management was always very fragmented (if not openly hostile toward each other). The CEO opted to pull the rip cord and picked an outsider. Of course the others then pulled the cord. The only remaining top level execs from those glory days were / are very average if not below average. They are not leaders and never were. Splinter was / is not capable of the heavy duty naviagation required to guide the company in the changed semi world. Company is not going to go under - - just drift along and be a place to work. If you join the company now you are late for the party - you will see nylons hanging from the lights, party cups and mugs everywhere on the floor and you will know there was once a big time party going on - - but alas those Glory Days have indeed passed on by.

My "Con" list is mostly a results of poor direction from senior management and our current "leader." 1. Incredibly political. You need to be aligned with a manager who has been able to gain control by kissing up. 2. Management is surprisingly disconnected from the employees who actually do work. 3. In order the make good money you need to survive the layoffs and stay motivated to work very long hours and weekends. 4. Politics and confused leadership from top has driven out the best technologists and engineers. Remaining solid engineers and managers have been stripped of authority to make sure groups play follow the leader. 5. Management is outsourcing jobs quickly. "Leader" constantly denies jobs are being outsourced yet we continually open new facilities outside of U.S. while laying off here; engineering functions are going to China and India; modeling is in Russia; many IT functions are in India; etc, etc. 6. Product development is a lost art/science at AMAT. We've replaced it with "program management." 7. Constant change of direction caused by clueless management. 8. Constant fear of layoffs. 9. Morale is very, very low. In my 15 years at AMAT I've never seen it this bad. It's all because there is no faith in management.