You like working in a call center? - Engineering Manager Applied Materials Employee Review

2.0
Aug 21, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The salaries here are generally pretty good, assuming that you can land full time employment. They LOVE to hire contractors. There are positions that require high tech thinking and can be very rewarding IF you are fortunate enough to get into one and IF you are fortunate enough to be working on a (presently) "hot" project and IF you are fortunate enough to have a decent boss who won't steal the credit for your work. If you like to travel, this place can keep you on the road all that you can handle and more. If you are a PowerPoint and meeting junkie, this is your nirvana. If you are a person who lives on the phone, this is your place.

Cons

Very, very TOP HEAVY (over-managed). Imperial and greedy management style (no one below Managing Director level matters at all, we're all just interchangeable widgets according to them). Legions of VPs, project managers and others trying to make themselves appear important at your expense. The vast majority of jobs here are pedestrian at best. Management historically tends to cut good people when cutting projects instead of re-purposing them. It's all about who you know without apparent regard to what you actually have accomplished. The new downsized cubicles are a total joke and a massive disservice to all who suffer in them. Facilities runs the entire company. The evidence for this is quite plain to see. It is the worst I have experienced in my entire career. Facilities should not be run like a profit center. Endless meetings, preparations for meetings, meetings to plan for meetings (literally), and other mindless related things. A new hot corporate initiative a week or so it seems, 95% of which are not only wasteful, but are in many instances quite actively destructive. This company can completely take over your life if you let it. You want to work 100 hours a week? No problem, it will happen. They literally used to warn about this during the new employee orientations...! Whatever you hire in as, you are likely to remain as. Don't plan a long career here (unless you are a bureaucrat).

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Pros

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Cons

Hours Schedule Flexibility Relocation Salary

2.0
Apr 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Salary, I was compensated very well, the I hated working there so much that I resigned without anything even lined up. It was a good move for my mental health.

Cons

The leadership in general are not very intelligent, disorganized, and uncommunicative. They were decades behind in certain areas that lead to massive inefficiencies and overwork. (Out of respect I will not be specific). I suggested an improvement that would have taken task time down from 8 hours to virtually real time, but the executive Team, in their arrogance, did not allow me to implement the system. Sometime later, the cumbersome, unreliable system was not working and a deadline approaching. I worked 20 hours per day for 7 days and built an entire real time reporting system - then resigned. No one at AMAT was ever helpful. It always seemed an inconvenience to give a colleague outside ones group the time of day. I gained absolutely ZERO new skills or professional development at AMAT all my time there. Many of the employees at the time, including senior management, felt free to publicly express invectives against the current POTUS in their suffering TDS. Another reason I could not work in the environment. Rules for thee and not for me.

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