Great environment for an entry level mechanical engineer. Need management shake-up or tear-down.
Pros
This is a great environment for an entry level mechanical engineer or ME with 3-5 years of experience in the electronics industry. Mechanical designs are done in-house and production is on site. It's great to see one of my designs go from CAD drawings and solid models to finished products within a few days to weeks. The complexity of the probe card industry has increased over the last ten years that I worked at FF. This bodes well since FF is at the leading edge of the probe card technology.
Cons
The pay is below average for the probe card manufacturer even though the company is within the top ten in the industry. Management ranges from "great-to-work-with" to "stay-the-heck-away-from" to "can't-do-my-job-unless-I-play-by-their-rules." Vacation and sick is satisfactory ever since paid-time-off became the norm. The recent merger with MicroProbe (in Carlsbad) introduced longer working hours (which is bad for those who are salaried). Bonus pay has been lousy for the lower level employees, but great for managers and higher-ups (which has caused much consternation among the proles). Not much room to move up (promotions are nearly non-existent). Pay raises are low.
