While Managment needs to improve, a great company you can stick with for the long-haul
Pros
Working at Applied Materials gives you several opportunities to be exposed to several industries and their leadership. While many opportunities for advancement may not exist inside a given deparment or division, Applied Materials is SO diverse that you have other opportunities to move elsewhere in the company and enjoy a diffent aspect of the company altogether. Management has set up Applied Global University to help you understand which aspects of your job you are REQUIRED to improve upon and those which you can optionally explore. Beyond carreer advancement, management is also aware of increasing need for a dispersed workforce and has implemented Applied Anywhere. This program allows select employees the ability to work from home and provides internet connectivity (with constant Applied network access) as well as printers, chairs, etc. that are necessary to perform your job funtions. As a user of both of these programs, they are the greatest incentive for me to remain at Applied Materials and continue to build my value for the company.
Cons
Applied Materials has grown out of several different companies, not unlike many larger companies. While this is considered a strength in many ways, Applied Materials has struggled in integrating recent acquisitions fully into the corporate atmosphere. This creates disjointed managment (i.e. do you go to the old management, who knows and will fight for you OR do you go to the new management who you don't know what to expect from and may favor their previous subordinates?). This wouldn't be a problem if several management redundancies were simply eliminated or restructured. Currently there are too many redundancies at the levels of these recent acquisitions that create confusion as to where you stand in the organization as a whole and where Applied stands -- and behind whom.