Semtech Staff Engineer reviews

As I’ve joined recently, I haven’t come across any cons yet.

In a nutshell, poor compensation, career opportunities, and quality of life. No end in sight. The Semtech acquisition of Sierra Wireless destroyed both companies. What remains is a hot mess and it's getting worse, not better. Leadership is not aligned with the actual company. Leaders chase an idealistic vision while the company is collapsing beneath them. It's the elephant in the room leadership will not address openly. Reorganization is frequent. Six CEO's in five years. Dysfunctional and neglegent management. Issues range from ignorance and incompetence, to bullying and abuse of power. Leadership does not monitor, let alone address, rampant management level issues. There are some good managers, but not enough to overcome the larger issues. Management heavy, yet lacking organization and oversight. Management problems are ignored by leadership. Employees are left to suffer endlessly under bad managers and interdepartmental politics. Toxic work environment. Low morale. Nobody listens. Nobody cares. Complaints are not actioned, or escalated appropriately. No respect for decent engineering practices. Ignorant, hasty, and selfish decision making is common. Endless future of technical debt and low quality work arounds. Outsourcing is the name of the game. Multiple departments have been downsized or eliminated and replaced by cheaper overseas labour. Dysfunction grows with time zone differences and language barriers. Those that remain are rewarded with broken projects and angry stakeholders. Employees that remain can be expected to attend business calls on their personal time, very early, or very late, depending on which timezone you have to cope with. Discriminitory return to work policy. If you happen to live within an arbitrary distance, you get rewarded with the burden of commuting three times a week to sit amongst angry people. Those that live on the outside of the imaginary line are exempt from return to work. Exempt staff often gloat and laugh at your burden on conference calls, including managers that should be curbing such behaviour. Poor compensation. No raise or bonus company wide for the last three years. No end in sight. Incentive program depends on company performance, which has been poor for years and not improving. No career development or recognition. Many staff overdue for promotion, for years. Just the daily grind for the same old pay check.