GlobalFoundries reviews

Dealing with a lot of instability, from management, to process flows, to changing demand, etc. Some personalities inside the company are difficult to deal with and lack the knowledge required in this industry

There's really too many to name, but for now I will talk about their GPM rating system. Your GPM rating essentially dictates your worth at this company. It's the discretionary system that will earn you a raise or prevent you from getting one. It is the number that dictates who will stay and who will go in a layoff. It's a big deal to us. People are rated 1 - 5. 1 is a poor worker, and will soon be out the door. 5 is a unicorn and does not exist. Unfortunately it is based on a bell curve, which is unrealistic. This means that even if you have a team of great workers, your manager must rate some of the people on your team low for no reason. Employees that have been with the company for a year or slightly over can only achieve a score of 3, or average, which has been a deterrent for a couple of the new guys they hired last year. The GPM system causes the manager to play favorites or choose people that he has more face time with because he must give out low scores, even if he is sure the work has been satisfactory. They will come up with an excuse. Mine was that I didn't ask for more training, when I absolutely did on several occasions. My manager even agreed with me in our meeting, but that's the way of the bell curve. Now that I'm done complaining about the things that are immediately on my mind, here are several others - 1.) Global has been continually failing in everything they do, and everyone feels the weight of this. It's a gloomy atmosphere. They also continue to fail in their treatment of employees. 2.) Most technicians are constantly afraid to lose their job here, which promotes a hostile work environment. Yet, they still send us to time wasting emotional intelligence and personality classes because they think the issue lies within us and our inability to communicate with each other. 3.) There are way too many rules. They are all punishable by death. They are absolutely heartless here and fire people over nothing. I've watched several of my great friends get walked out the door for mistakes and issues that were easily correctable. Out of all three years I've been here, I've never seen management care about the employee's welfare. 4.) Nobody cares about technicians in this job. Engineers are royalty. Managers are royalty. There is 1 manager for every 5 people here. 5.) This is the only semiconductor company that requires you to be in the fab unless you are on break. IBM wasn't like this. You're not allowed to leave the premises on break either. You work a 13 hour shift and get one 30 minute break for a meal. Please be prepared to starve. The cafe cannot even serve you within the time period of 30 minutes. People have gotten walked out for spending too much time out of the clean room, regardless if they were performing work duties. 6.) There is no clear path for career advancement. No one cares about your development. My GPM rating was horrible. My coworkers love me. I'm very helpful. I worked hard over the last year. I studied. I outperformed many other people. I will be leaving this job as soon as I find another position. 7.) The pay is horrible for semiconductor. 8.) Nobody really cares about you.