software engineer

senior software engineer

designer

electronics technician

release engineer

Altair

I worked at Altair Engineering full-time for more than a year. This review is based on my experiences working on the PBS team in the Bay Area, CA. Most of the Engineers were overseas, and a team of less than a dozen in CA.

Pros:
o Most employees were good to work with.
o Though the product was esoteric and not without flaws, it seemed like care had been taken over the years while designing it.

Neutral:
o The product was around twenty years old, so a considerable amount of time and effort got spent doing software maintenance (bug fixes etc), with new feature work happening from time to time.
o This group was also process heavy. After a certain point this yields diminishing returns and things can slow down to a crawl.

Cons:
o Compensation seemed to be lower than the average Bay Area company.
o One of the senior Engineers was very difficult to work with, and being rude and petty came effortlessly to this person. Professional courtesy was a rarity and I learnt what it feels like to have joy sucked out of work so thoroughly. I'm quite sure I wasn't the only one who felt this way.
o Engineering management was overseas. Without being fully aware of ground realities here, decisions got made with not much regard for negative impact on one's career. Smelt like political expedience.

If you choose to join this group, stick around for a year or so and then decide for yourself. If it isn't working out for whatever reason(s), be aware that Silicon Valley has plenty of opportunities for the right candidate.

Good luck.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Good supportive culture among co-workers at the work-floor level.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
You will get laid off. The company was different before it went public.
If you don't get laid off, salaries are modest and salary raises are puny. 
Salaries outside Altair are 30% higher than at Altair.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Good and supportive culture at the work-floor level.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
One hour of reading e-mail blasts by individuals to large mailing lists, mostly for their own visibility.
As an application engineer, a mix of customer support (finding out why something strange happens on a customer's compute cluster) and being scheduled to sell software for the sales people (not sure what they do, other than getting the commission).

The work that most engineers do there  (apart from software developers )  is nothing more than glorified QAs and coordinators. Things can get boring pretty quickly sitting on a computer all day, and there are no real life challenges or problems. They have a lot of people who has been with them for 10+ years and they have became pretty good in doing that two particular things mentioned above while receiving below market pay.  
There are constant acquisitions and  reorganization leads to poor coordination between different teams.  
If you want a chill work environment, below average pay and do work which minimal  importance to real life challenges then this is the place for you.

Its a small office but there is always work so you will never be bored.  The work requires lots of attention to detail, heavy research, editing, revising and is subject to most if not all day on the computer.  Great team and management.  Family oriented, professional but fun environment.  You can learn alot here and the people here really take their time to train you right.  

I was exposed to all financial and operational aspects of the company. I learned to plan ahead and work independently to achieve timely reporting to management as well as to outside entities, such as state revenue departments.
The most enjoyable aspect of my job was meeting deadlines ahead of time.
The hardest part of my job was trying to please multiple supervisors. Although I technically reported to the CFO, the owner and his son would bypass him and give me tasks directly, which challenged me to complete additional tasks on a timely basis.

If you're a skilled engineer, Altair is a wonderful place to work. They have a very progressive work environment, flexible schedule, and are respectful of work / life balance. 

As a privately owned company, politics can often get in the way. There is also a struggle with communication throughout the company.

The hardest part of the job is the lack of focus due to an extremely diverse offering of products in a variety of industries. You tend to try to do a little bit for everything rather than focus efforts on something specific.

Altair offers a suite of tools that are useful to automotive, aero, manufacturing, and other industries. Altair is able to respond relatively quickly to changing market needs.

On the employee relations side, they are a bit conservative. Flexible work schedules are offered by some, but not all groups. There is a certain amount of pressure for employees in the trenches to adapt to how their manager works, rather than the managers trying to figure out how the employees work best...

Interesting work with good staff. Excellent networking opportunities on occasion, but the company is not very well set up to support regular networking within fully or mostly remote teams. Combination of some meaningful interesting work and some boring busy work dependent on client needs at the time. Good culture and good flexibility, slightly lower than average pay.

Good place to work at. The company culture is friendly and I got to work on a variety of interesting projects. There are lots of opportunities to learn new skills here if you want to. Work hours were somewhat flexible, and I was rarely required to work extra hours. The only tradeoff for the benefits is that the pay is less than average for the job.

Work-life balance
Work-life balance at Altair Engineering is good

Pay & benefits
My pay and benefits at Altair Engineering are OK

Job security and advancement
In terms of job security at Altair Engineering, I think It's safe

Management
In general, managers at Altair Engineering are good

Culture
Collaboration with my colleagues at Altair Engineering is good

Overall
My experience working at Altair Engineering is good

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 4 salaries reported	$110,750 per year
Senior software engineer 1 salary reported	$146,000 per year
Designer 4 salaries reported	$112,750 per year
Electronics technician 1 salary reported	$50,000 per year
Release engineer 2 salaries reported	$102,500 per year

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