Applied Materials reviews

Long hours, impossible to have normal family life while working at AM. Relatively new management is manipulative and fails to meet goals. I see that management not as best AM had with all basic values established years ago.

- Since Mike Splinter took over he has completely changed the focus of the company. - Splinter remains as both Chairman and CEO, surrounded himself with "yes men" on the board of directors, and thus consolidated himself in complete unchallenged power. - Huge rewards for executive levels with bonus payments and share options. - Complete disregard for both valuable customers and the regular employees from senior management. - A corrupt HR structure that is completely incompetent. HR director keeps the board of directors happy, but no one else exists. HR within the products groups pass the buck, never answer questions and generally show up to work whenever they feel like it. Some HR regularly park in ERT designated parking, so much for following the rules eh ! - Short term goals, living quarter to quarter. Finance within KPU's is under constant pressure to cut budgets which only ends up impacting our competitiveness to customers. One example of this is not being allowed to order wafers for development and customer demo preparation, another is getting rid of lab systems that are needed for customer support and development. - Spending huge money on external consultations for the PLC reorg, this spending is never questioned. - In "hard times" spending money on new gym equipment, sat tv for the gym, resurfacing the basketball courts in the Arques campus, and facelifting buildings on the Bowers campus for senior management. - Having ridiculous spending on "Employee Appreciation" events, while at the same time announcing shutdowns. - Constant fear of layoffs, layoffs are happening silently all the time, and multiple week shutdowns which end up resulting in no pay to employees if they run out of vacation time. Not only does this impact the employee's pockets - but it limits development time for critical products that are needed for customers. - Competition is catching up with a weak Applied, and beating us daily on system selection (future business is becoming less and less) - Short term thinking from Splinter is limiting future growth in the core business. - Flawed strategy in Solar lead by Splinter resulted in a huge loss to the company, greatly impacted share price as a result. Yet Splinter remains in charge. - Grossly overpaying with the $4.9B acquisition of Varian for implant, more than double of what was needed. - Having yes people who happen to be personal friends of Silicon division Management getting promoted to Senior Director. Is now actively reducing Santa Clara lab capacity for cost reduction. Promotions are not done on technical merit, but more on who you know. - Outsourcing, manufacturing getting outsourced to Singapore and China. Yet the corporation hangs an American Flag up and has a huge tax avoidance policy. - Getting rid of full time employees, and rehiring them as contractors who have no benefits or security.