Communications Manager | Folsom, CA | Apr 15, 2016
Want the truth? Check Intel's sales and employment track records
I spent nine years in Intel's IT Communications department, received all-positive reviews, and lost my job for being an underperforming employee. Why? The official word is that I didn't do enough my last couple of years to show personal growth in my job; not demonstrate enough of an interest to learn other things. The reality is that there simply wasn't anywhere else for me to go in my job, short of becoming a manager or leaving for another department. I'm in communications. What do I do next -- become an engineer?
Intel's big on "personal growth." They don't like it if you stay in one job too long; they'd rather have you move on to a different area after a few years. In theory, this creates a well-rounded employee. In practice, if forces you out of what you do best and into a role that you may not be suited for, which can lead to -- you guessed it -- subpar performance and loss of job. The company's executives face the same situation; there's been three different CIOs since 2008; our department had four managers in six years. You end up with a supervisor who isn't consistently trained, doesn't know all facets of their job (and who may have become a supervisor simply to show that crucial "growth") and makes mistakes that harm others' careers.
As a result, there's a lot of stress beneath the smiles people give as you walk down the hall.
And then there's company performance as a whole. Intel has had several boom and bust periods over the past 15 years, and when thing
ProsExcellent pay for my field (average for the company overall), lots of opportunity for growth, good healthcare and retirement benefits, performance bonuses, generous vacation and sabbatical for the lesser-experienced.
ConsUnstable employment climate, continual cost cutting, mandatory year-to-year job growth, evaluations are solely in the hands of your immediate manager
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Manufacturing Technician | Hillsboro, OR | Apr 23, 2019
Typical lying corporate management style
Typical day at work: clean up after day shift. Finish their tasks while attempting to do your own shift's tasks. Wonder why day shift didn't get their assigned tasks done when they had all the engineers working on their shift and typically more technicians. Try to stay alert while the job queue rarely filled up. Repeatedly ask for more training and more detailed and clarified training - but don't receive any. Watch as the job scheduler wasn't taken full advantage of by management or engineers. The job scheduler poorly communicated to technicians when would be a good time to do scheduled maintenance, Expect that Engineers will ask you to keep up with the area maintenance schedules even when they overbooked job tasks for the area, or forgot to order the necessary supplies. Frequently expect poorly worded or confusing job run descriptions from Engineers and previous shift technicians. This will result in the frequently grumpy, woken up engineer - asked to provide clarifications. Watch while upstream items aborted in your area when they arrived - due to upstream technicians/engineers/managers failing to properly do the work/ensure that it is being done according to specifications for your area. Attempt to put out one or more fires during your shift, document them, and get your area ready for the next shift. Expect to repeatedly document the same problems from day to day, week to week, or even month to month. Always expect negative motivation from managers/engineers. Never expect
ProsBenefits
ConsNegative reinforcement management style. Horrible training program.
The most outstanding company I have ever had the pleasure to work within.
I have held several different leadership/management positions within the Intel Chandler, AZ (Ocotillo) campus. Intel has three large manufacturing facilities on this campus ranging in size from 200,000 to 300,000 square feet of Mfg floor space. I have worked in all three facilities at different times throughout my 17 year career based upon which technology was being produced in which facility and where I was requested to work. Intel utilizes the three facilities to rotate technologies as they advance to each new technology. The facility which was manufacturing the oldest of the three technologies will eventually become retrofitted when it is its turn to bring on the newest technology. Personnel on campus typically rotate with technologies to keep the skill sets balanced or they move to where critically needed.
My typical work day is logging into work from home before going to work to check all our automated production indicators for a current status on the factory and my department. Upon arrival at work I meet with the off-going area Group Leader for any specific details, questions I might have, help needed he needs from me, issues not readily understood from the indicators, anything I need to anticipate for my shift. After this we meet with his team and my team in the factory for any safety updates, any process related issues, a machine-by-machine passdown status and any generic updates. After his team departs the factory my team and I stay back to establish work
ProsLeading edge technology company, professional working environment from the top down to the shiftly production workers, exemplary integrity in how the business is run, top tier total compensation and benefits packages, corporate role models in manufacturing safety, efficiency and quality execution
ConsThere are no cons. My desire to leave is for personal family reasons.
Fascinating Work Environment. ICE Program is the only downside.
I've found it very difficult to get oriented to Intel. Very difficult to get up to speed on everything going on due to relatively poor training material, mediocre training mentality and the incredible sophistication of the process.
The employment can be incredibly lucrative with factory output bonuses and quarterly company performance bonuses. Intel offers an array of services including a subsided cafe with free beverages (soda, juice, fruit-infused water, coffee, iced tea, etc.). A massage (once every month) and other small comforts to relieve the stress of work.
A strong company culture around employee safety and producing a quality product. The manufacturing is fast-paced, results-driven, and heavily team-oriented.
In my opinion, the purpose or "drive" of the company can be lacking at times. It can be difficult to answer the "Why" sometimes. If I'm being blunt it feels that we're just out to make as much money as possible by maximizing our throughput, improving quality and ultimately satisfying customer demands. Frankly, that's pretty sufficient to me, but you feel incredibly distance from the final customer. This is countered by some notable Intel features...
Intel definitely stands out due to the "extras" it offers. Intel will donate to organizations where employees perform volunteer roles or community service. Their investment in solar power and water reclamation in Arizona is huge! The on-site cafes use sustainable products whenever possible (biodegradable plas
I was advised before I joined Intel that it was a big ship that takes a long time to change course. It is certainly a large company that seems to focus more on keeping their people placated with fun things while wondering why their quality is so poor. Their almost fanatical embrace of globalization causes a lot of problems for teams that have to coordinate through several different time zones.
Currently Intel is a company in panic. It is desperately looking to stay relevant. All of my experience is in one of their mobile departments where they are trying extremely hard to compete in the mobile space. Word on the cube row is that the only department in the company that is making money are the server groups. I've worked on some good projects, and some awful morale-shattering assignments.
The managers I've dealt the most with are, for the most part, dishonest, refuse to take responsibility for issues that arise that they could have prevented, and often expect you to be psychic so you can read their minds to know what is expected of you.
Prepare to sit through extremely pointless meetings that consist mainly of management waterfall items. These are often about reorganization, the latest golden goose that Intel wants to chase, or some executive moving from one three-letter organization to another. Learn to look forward to that daily email of encouragement from the CEO or some other nameless executive talking about how the future of Intel is ever so cheery and br
ProsLow work expectations, free drinks
ConsMicro-managers, pointless projects, expensive cafeterias, no company direction
Management was only after their personal gains, not the good of the company or employees.
This was rented pace in disconnected building 1 mile away from the 2 main Intel buildings. It had a separate set of its own management and processes.
There were a lot of safety problems and management issues, both because of selecting wrong priorities and because of choosing self interest over employee or company interests:
- on the very first day one a manager of another team brings me a free sandwich [left over from another company's meeting]. The next 3 weeks she keeps glorifying this room she has for rent and trying to rent it to me for double the price. She also pretends she has good connection to all the big guys, she can introduce me to important guys, and such. I had to clarify my disinterest much clearer than a simple No to communicate it is final!
- There was 6 hours safety instructions including video, reading materials, tests. They included instructions such as do not lean back hard on the chairs, they might flip! and still they were grossly mismanaging the safety! Right after instructions ended they sent me to get my laptop from the other building and insisted instead of walking I ride one of their visibly missing break googly bikes, riding through a tiny 3 feet path with up and downs, majority of it next to a river on one side and 15ft 70 degree free fall to the bottom of the river. I had to carry the laptop and the bike both.
- They gave me a non-standard table 36" high. I never had any problems before or after this job, but at this job I felt uncomf
I was a contractor (green badge) at the Ronler Acres site for ten months being being hired on at Intel. I am now an Intel employee (blue badge). I almost didn't take the Intel offer because I thought it was insultingly low, and I now regret that I did.
Pros: compressed workweek, lots of PTO
I have never worked anywhere where so many of my coworkers were visibly and vocally miserable about being at work. Morale here is very low. Pay is bad relative to cost of living in the Portland metro area for entry level workers and does not come close to being competitive to the rest of the industry for higher level technical and engineering jobs. There is also a major skills mismatch for their new hires: they're hiring former auto mechanics and maintenance techs, tell them they're going to be wrenching, and then 80% of them find out they will be in front of a computer and might not touch a hand tool for a couple years, if ever.
Despite the low pay, I believe that the low morale is primarily a result of the nonexistent training process, Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and the culture of fear that pervades working here.
Training: There is literally no training regimen after the first week of orientation. There are a bunch of certifications you need to get and a bunch of applications you need permissions for. No one seems to know the requirements for any of them and is unwilling to help you find out. Some people get their certs done in 3 months, some never do so they just quit after a couple o
ProsCompressed work week, ok benefits
ConsLow pay, miserable coworkers, unorganized company
Great place to work if you loved the newest IT technologies.
Participates in requirements analysis, development, integration, and testing of the IT Systems Monitoring.
I integrated associated systems and processes into existing IT monitoring tools. Provides highest level of IT Systems performance and availability monitoring in a 24X7 monitoring environment to ensures maximum IT system uptime.
Collaborates with internal Business Units and IT Support groups to resolve technical issues related to IT Systems Monitoring. Provides leadership in the development of IT System Monitoring processes and procedures, while also contributing to continuous improvement in the IT systems monitoring. Working with IT Monitoring Systems administrators to ensure monitoring systems are configured to provide optimal support of the enterprise systems and networks. Monitor toolsets, identify and categorize alerts, perform basic troubleshooting, generate remedy incident tickets, escalate incidents to support staff, and manage customer communications. Corrects or suggests alternative solutions to problems by monitors system activity and operations using monitoring and management tools and learned techniques. Communicates, counsels and advises customers on the status of network support requests.
Works on assignments that are moderately complex in nature. Interacts daily with supervisor, peer groups, and customers. Creates related documentation, standards and procedures to comply with corporation and industry standards. Attends business meetings, and collaborates w
Proshighest level knowledge of newest technologies
My first experience of working in an industry environment in the United States. And it was as dynamic and challenging as most of the things I’ve experienced in this country. I got this opportunity due to a bizarre combination of luck and recent knowledge gained in microelectronics packaging course. I was selected to work in thermal and fluid core competency lab which is a part of ATTD. This group works mainly on mechanical and material aspects of chip packaging design, testing, and analysis to support advanced chip architectures and technologies. This lab is lead by a cool, fun, smart manager who happened to a big football (soccer, if you will) fan and some very smart, hardworking folks in it. During my scanty tenure of just over two months, I made a good bond with everyone, shared drinks and learned a lot.
Having trained and worked in thermal and fluid transport phenomenon, I quickly grasped the fundamentals of package cooling and its design. I worked on two projects- one of which involved the understanding of heat sinks and the other one, characterizing the soft gap pad thermal interface materials. We started off by proposing a hypothesis to test the heat sink, eventually designed the experiments and conducted test. During this exercise, I worked with lab technicians to get the fabrication and assembly part done. One of the important things I learned here was to plan ahead. You really have to think it through and plan accordingly because there can be a lot of things bey
Job Description: Responsible as a lead global instructor, developer and Manager. Provide On-Site and remote training sessions for True-Scale and Omni-Path fabrics. Primary webcast and course developer for OEM, New Hires and Customer audiences. Responsible for setting training delivery expectations and scheduling working closely with sales, management, OEM’s and customers.
Accomplishments: Making it happen with many hats!
• Mentored/TTT two new instructors for the OPA training team
• Supported new admin with process flow, templates and training process
• Delivered 55 OPA training sessions
• Delivered 5 on-site training sessions for OPA customers
• Supported various questions, materials, and SFT setups
• Received 19 appreciation awards
• Implemented first training classroom in Hudson MA
• Provide leadership for fabric lab infrastructure
• Provide all the scheduling and reporting for management
• Provide on-going training communications for OEM’s, Partners, Resellers and Customers
• Added 4 new webcasts to our library to help scale training
• Provide day to day training support for all
• Working with Intel Builders teams to create a Fabric Builders portal for customer/sales training.
• Installed two more fabrics to support training growth initiatives
• Delivered two quarterly workshops at our Hudson training facility
• Continue to bring talented fabric professionals to our teams
Summary:
Fabric training continues to deliver Omni-Path foundations
ProsWork from home, keep getting rewards
Questions And Answers about Intel
Why did you leave your job at Intel?
Asked Mar 22, 2017
Completed construction of FAB 42 building
Answered Jul 8, 2019
CS management is an idiot. The clique-ish culture made for an hostile environment to a newcomer. A bunch of juvenile guys that spoke badly about the company, the management and coworkers.
Answered Mar 21, 2019
How did you get your first interview at Intel Corporation?
Asked Jun 8, 2016
My first interview came during a career fair visit from Intel in 1997. The interview was somewhat challenging, but I got through it....thank God.
Answered Feb 27, 2018
Internal referral
Answered Feb 9, 2018
What is the interview process like at Intel Corporation?
Asked Jun 8, 2016
Multiple interviews with key personnel interacting with potential role. Employment interview process was good, focused, and interviewers were knowledgeable.
Answered Dec 18, 2019
Phone interview with HR then on site interview with the hiring manager
Answered Feb 9, 2018
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Intel Corporation a better place to work?
Asked Feb 15, 2018
Hire more engineers to create better on-call culture.
Answered Jan 16, 2021
I would have free meals
Answered Dec 1, 2020
What benefits does Intel Corporation offer?
Asked Jun 19, 2016
All benefits Medical, profit-sharing, stock shares, retirement, 401K, Sabbatical
Answered Dec 14, 2017
Same as any other company in the market. No difference. Nothing unique.
