Great Technology and Great Company but can be a lot better
Pros
I have worked for KLA-TENCOR for almost a decade. They recruited me fresh from school. Initially I loved how they threw new projects at me with tough deadlines, I strive for that; however, soon I found that my life was turning into 7a.m-7p.m. 12 hour shifts just to get work done Learning: Company encourages you to expand your horizon, learn, and even get a higher degree while supporting you. You can theoretical attend trainings, and learn new things. I was lucky initially in my career that my original manager fully supported that attitude; however, it has been many years that my manager has changed and my new manager is fully against it! (Not sure why!) He feels it is a matter of waste. It is so sad. However, most reasonable managers I have met, they encourage their employees to learn (keep up to date) and company certainly provides many means of support for that. Technology: you do Work with the latest technology and technological ideas. I have had the best systems and top of the line equipments at my disposal. You get to play with really neat stuff. there is a always a new challenge waiting for you another the corner Compensation: Among the high tech companies of its size, KLA-TENCOR offers reasonable salaries and compensations. Annual raise is almost guaranteed as long as you perform well and have a good relationship with your manager. There used to be BIG Bonuses and very good Stock Options, all of which has been disappearing through years. Company tries to lift the workers spirit by providing occasional outings, and Holiday activities. Friendly people: Generally, Most people are nice and friendly. wherever you end up working, you will get to know your peer well. Interactions are mostly friendly and courteous, however, that could turn into disarray when Project deadlines approach, or escalations fall into your lap. Be ready for unreasonable demands, and unwise decisions being made by your superiors! Health and Wellness: Company puts emphasize on individual's health and well-being, possibly to get better deal with insurance companies and save money, none the less the reason, it is good for employees. There is a GYM, volleyball court, Basketball court and a Bocce Ball court (yes :) Some people bike to work. The CEO (Rick Wallace at the moment) has been seen watching the Basketball games enthusiastically. He is also an avid Biker and keep in shape which is a good example for the employees. Traveling: If you are in the Global Support, field or application Engineer, you get to work with the customer more closely, This means you will be traveling to some exotic locations. My experience has been that If I had to travel, it had always been for a difficult reason and I end up working long hours and under stressful conditions, however, I know many colleagues to come up with various non-sense reasons to just take that next hop to over seas and rack up their mileage. Company has a generous selection of options for travel (hotels and all your expenses will be paid). I am just sad to hear that some colleagues abuse this too much. But as I said, if you like to travel, you can join one of those groups. NO First or Business Class travel allowed (unless you are some high level manager I guess).
Cons
Meetings: Meetings, meetings, meetings, and more stupid meetings.... TOO MANY MEETINGS. KLA has way too many meetings. Such a Waste of company's time. Sometimes there are meetings about meetings. I sometimes wonder, between Meetings, Lunch hours, GYM and long hours of wasteful conversations in the break rooms how some people get work done! I found the answer, they do not! Which goes to my second Cons below Bad Habits: There are two types of people at this company: The Doers: these are the people that actually get work done and in my opinion are the bread and butter of the company. These are valuable technicians and engineers with good ideas who proactively and enthusiastically accomplish their tasks. Then there are those (mostly engineers with some seniority) who do 1 thing and ONE thing only; perhaps it is a board they designed long ago or some other critical device they pushed from generation to generation which company is stuck with it, because the high level managers are afraid they be taking a risk of selecting new approaches. These people are closed minded, lazy, and generally watch they clock all day to leave early, and run away. If you ask them to help you with anything not related to their work, they will blow you off. If an issue occurs that requires their attention, they first try to blame others and run away from the issue. Unfortunately, this mentality exists among many engineers in this company. This puts a burden on the rest of the hard working employees. Attitude: I guess no matter where you work, you will find people with attitude. It is unfortunate that some divisions within KLA-TENCOR attracts more people with attitude than others. Management: NOT GOOD! Period. All they think is ($$$) With all do respect to many of the people I work with who are managers, many of which I know personally, their management skills is Zilch, Nada, nonexistent. Despite companies management roadmap and training, it boils down to individual human beliefs and attitude. What I see from most managers is the attitude of saving their own A$$ and forcing their employees to follow irrational and reactive decisions all the time. Some managers put a damp on your enthusiasm for learning, critical thinking and out of the box thinking only because they are not like that and of course they do not want you to shine. Email: there are so many emails that it sometimes gets overwhelming. Your boss could be a cube or two away, yet for simplest questions or information, He/She would rather sit in his fat chair and email. This attitude is prevalent all over the company. It is worst for some than others, but I am sure if the company did some sort of analysis of email usage and correlate that to the time wasted answering all sorts of useless emails, they would be saving millions!$$
