Lam Research reviews

this is a very political workplace where people spend too much time polishing their ppt presentations in hope of impressing upper management at the inevitable weekly / monthly / quarterly review meeting (people seem to spend half their time preparing slides or presenting them in review meetings). there is very little room for decision or creativity at the individual level; in fact creativity and risk taking are generally discouraged. the culture can be pretty aggressive too.

Managers are hired from below instead of based on education. This means that good techs or engineers become bad managers. Lam is also a cut-throat environment. The best way to get ahead is to throw another employee under the bus. HR tends to side with those at fault in conflicts in order to avert a confrontation. Breaks aren't long enough to go to the bathroom and lunches aren't long enough to eat, due to gowning/de-gowning counting toward break times. Management tends to yell instead of calmly discussing issues. Management does as they please and work whatever schedule they feel like, but hypocritically enforce strict policies on lower employees.