A great deal for a fresh college grad
Pros
For fresh college grads (ME, BME, EE, CS, Physics) feeling left out of the tech world, Applications Engineering is the perfect avenue to find your way toward a career in tech: - You can work 40-50 hours a week and still be very successful - Work/Life balance is fantastic! - Career flexibility (sales, R&D, support, product management, marketing) - Management looks for ways to use your unique skills and passions - Opportunities for fun and interesting travel - Open workplace communication, no need to watch your back - Opportunities to work directly with Director and VP level within first few years - Lots of happy hours at work, at times there are free tickets to Austin area activities - Recently upgraded 15-days of vacation for new hires starting in 2016, plus 10 company holidays and generous sick time. - Work with a lot of fun, smart people - Great job security NI is involved in a lot of neat technology development that advances science and engineering, such as humanoid robots, space exploration, innovative cancer treatments, and cutting edge consumer and automotive tech. Its exhilarating to have a window into this innovation that is taking place with NI tools.
Cons
- AE time is not counted toward career job experience (i.e. might spend two years doing tech support and then transfer into R&D, only to start out as a level 1. Your friends at other companies might get senior (level 3) before you are even level 2.) - Like at any company, decision-making can become mired in executive-level politics. Business owners have decision making rights, except when the CEO disagrees. This can result in awkward stalemates or demoted business owners. - Average compensation for software development and product management is significantly below Austin averages. An internal working group is investigating this, but it comes down to the company needing to grow. - NI isn't very good at firing people (see job security above). This means you sometimes get stuck working with people that aren't very good at their job and this can block a lot of progress.
