Yay for Pay... but that's about it. - Product Structure Engineer Applied Materials Employee Review

2.0
Feb 24, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay was absolutely great until the downturn forced pay cuts. The benefits were always great. There were a lot of intelligent people with great ideas about how to improve products and processes.

Cons

While the pay was great, employees were forced to take a 5% pay cut. Upper Management took a 10% pay cut, but because the company made it to their profitability goal, all the VPs and such got HUGE bonuses compared to their pay cut. Employees got shafted on that one. While there were a lot of intelligent people with great ideas, management rarely listened to them (until they hired a consultant who told them the same thing). If you did good work, you got pigeonholed doing it and they kept piling more work on fromt he folks who were laid-off. So eventually people got burned out because they were doing 3X the work (or more) than they were getting paid for. Sadly, their heroic efforts were rewarded with "Well, you got a job."

Explore other reviews about Applied Materials

5.0
Feb 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amazing benefits. Lots of opportunities for growth across different BU.

Cons

Demanding. But that is very common in the semiconductor industry

2.0
Apr 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Salary, I was compensated very well, the I hated working there so much that I resigned without anything even lined up. It was a good move for my mental health.

Cons

The leadership in general are not very intelligent, disorganized, and uncommunicative. They were decades behind in certain areas that lead to massive inefficiencies and overwork. (Out of respect I will not be specific). I suggested an improvement that would have taken task time down from 8 hours to virtually real time, but the executive Team, in their arrogance, did not allow me to implement the system. Sometime later, the cumbersome, unreliable system was not working and a deadline approaching. I worked 20 hours per day for 7 days and built an entire real time reporting system - then resigned. No one at AMAT was ever helpful. It always seemed an inconvenience to give a colleague outside ones group the time of day. I gained absolutely ZERO new skills or professional development at AMAT all my time there. Many of the employees at the time, including senior management, felt free to publicly express invectives against the current POTUS in their suffering TDS. Another reason I could not work in the environment. Rules for thee and not for me.

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