Standing alone, squeezed between customer and KLA-Tencor, "fighting" both at the same time.
Pros
- Technical leadership over competitors and continuous R&D investment - Company has a strong financial base and knows which way it's heading - Salary is usually OK
Cons
- Kafkaesque administration, with lots of little rules and online forms to fill in, on usually very unstable and slow servers, which are very difficult to access from outside the office. E.g.: An expense report for a short 2-days biz trip can take ages to be finished and then even longer to go through expense approval. Be prepared to "lend" Thousands of dollars for 6 or 7 months to the company if you're in for a longer biz trip. - The philosophy is: "in case of doubt, sack first, ask (yourself) questions later"... Or another one: "rules matter more than people". - Like most US companies: hypocrite to the bone; issuing "values" that their employees are supposed to follow, while the company is happily ignoring them. - Not trustworthy; doesn't keep promises (even if they're written down, signed, etc...), unless you really fight for it. - Promotion is not based on merit but on politics
