- The current CEO laid off ~25% of the researchers in the lab in November 2017. Several people were in the middle of visa processing and their stay in the United States was put in jeopardy. Several people had been with the company for less than a year. There was no budget reason for the lay off, and an explanation/justification was not provided (to those laid off or to the remaining employees). If you are looking for stable employment, this is not the place for you.
- New CEO and SVP are sent from Japan every 3-4 years. Some of them are great, and some of them are not. There is no continuity of leadership or research strategy. How this affects researchers, for example, is that when a new CEO comes in, he may decide that what a particular researcher has been doing over the *past* several years is not valuable and therefore the researcher should not be promoted (even though the researcher may have had no say in what they were working on).
- There are also some very bad managers within the labs . Despite reports to HR and executive management, and many people leaving these managers' groups (and even interrupting their green card application processing to do so), they are not only tolerated but promoted. Managers really do have all the power here.
- Researchers want to come to the labs to do research but only some groups do research, while others heavily focus on standards, and still others focus almost exclusively on implementing prototypes. Make sure you know what you are getting into.
- A lot of interesting work cannot be conducted in the labs in the US but is instead reserved for the labs in Japan. Unlike researchers in Japan, local researchers here have to constantly apply for funding and justify and re-justify their approach and their work. This makes us feel like second-class citizens.
- Gender diversity within the labs is dismal. There is currently only 1 woman researcher in Sunnyvale. There are no attempts to recruit, retain or mentor women. In fact, 4 (out of 5) were laid off in November! There are no women in management on the research side and there have not been any over the past 10 years at least, maybe more.
