Great place to work, but your career may slip behind
Pros
As an employee in the Austin office, I find the culture laid back and friendly. As a European-based company, you get a lot of benefits and work-life benefits. While Arm doesn’t have the most advanced IP in the industry, the research division does an excellent job at picking stable, proven technology, and the business model behind Arm is extremely efficient and stable.
Cons
Some managers are highly technical, which is great for asking questions and daily interactions, but this makes communication for raises and promotions harder. In general, I’ve seen a lot of hard-working and well-deserving engineers get held back on promotions for far longer than they should. I’m not sure if this is because Arm just has a small budget allocated for promotions or that highly technical managers don’t fill the role of fighting for promotions. All too often I see people hired in at higher grade levels and doing the same work as current employees, which is very discouraging.
