process engineer

mechanical engineer

engineering technician

manufacturing engineer

senior process engineer

Applied-Materials

This is a pretty stressful place to work.  Let's start with the hiring process.  If you'll be in the cleanroom, there's a 99% chance you'll be in there as a contractor.  That type of employment ensures you won't have any benefits, PTO, holidays, or even job security.  Good luck becoming RFT (Regular full time), you pretty much need to be chosen from the beginning.  Next is the workload.  I can't speak for every role in the company, but my area works 10 hours a day, 6 days a week.  This day off will shift between Saturday or Sunday on a monthly basis, so if you even want to consider having a life outside of work, don't get a job here.  You will be doing much of the same work day after day.  Repetition is good for getting your work done faster, but it gets boring real fast and if you finish your work early, you're left sitting around and hoping the managers don't catch you sleeping.  Unless you do a better job than the managers, and they notice, you will not advance out of your current position.

The management.  Or should I call them, micromanagement.  75% of their job is nitpicking every little thing.  Though there are no cameras in the cleanroom, you will constantly be watched.  It's annoying and compliance is a cat and mouse game.  You better hope your manager is good, otherwise you'll go out of your way to avoid them.

The culture.  Due to the cleanroom (as opposed to the offices downstairs) being populated with mostly temporary workers, the facilities are treated in much the same manner as a rental car.  People leaving their trash in the change room, chairs and desks are constantly broken.  There are very few breakrooms for the number of workers, so during lunch and breaks, most people will spend time in their cars.  It's not uncommon to come back from break and have your coworker reek of pot smoke.  Also due to the schedule taking much of peoples' free time away, many employees will try to get "friendly" with one another, if you catch my drift.  As a tech, tools are the lifeblood of your job, but depending on your line you could be missing half of your required tools.  People will either steal them, hide them, bring them to other lines, or leave them inside of the product.  Just as well, you are not provided with all the tools to do your job, so many workers are expected to purchase their own tools, which are also subject to theft.

There are three clear strata of workers at this company.  The cleanroom workers and janitorial staff, office workers, and upper management.  Needless to say, the lowest tier gets treated as disposable, like a robot.  As a contractor, going in to the breakroom and looking at the TV is an exercise in anger management.  The TVs will show a slideshow of all company events and things to enroll in.  But these things are reserved for RFTs only.  It's a slap in the face.

The job itself.  There is no formal training.  If you're lucky, you might sit down with someone who started a month before you and have them teach you how to do things.  Everything is learning on the fly.  They rely a lot on in-company classes.  Most of these classes are typical corporate mandated dreck, you'll most likely get classes assigned to you that have no relevance to your position, but you have to take them because the upper management likes seeing compliance.  I hope you like mystery acronyms because almost every aspect of the company has one.  You will also receive no feedback, positive or negative.  You will have no idea if you're doing a good job or bad job, unless they come to fire you.

On the whole, this company is a chaotic mess that's great if you're upper management or an engineer, but terrible otherwise.  If you value your free time at all, or if you have a family you'd like to spend time with, look elsewhere.

Applied Materials is a fantastic place to learn some deep skills in semiconductor manufacturing processes, however it is far from ideal.  The role as a Process Engineer is typically very hands on and provides a lot of technical learning.  Those familiar with the Process Engineer role at semiconductor manufacturers such as Intel or Global Foundries and those at semiconductor capital equipment vendors will appreciate the huge contrast in technical skills needed and learnable at AMAT as compared to Intel.  If you have a choice between employers and want to do some interesting hands-on R&D work then choose AMAT.  It's a great first or second job in the industry.  

There are some downsides.  The industry is mature and as such it is difficult to continue to provide the growth demanded by Wall Street while solving more and more challenging problems related to semiconductor fabrication.   The most frustrating aspect of working here is the cyclical nature of the business and how that translates to morale and resources.  Every 2 years there is an industry downturn.  Everyone knows this, but management treats these lulls in business like they are the end of the world, cutting resources to the bone on paper.  However managers on key projects then have to jump through hoops to get the resources they need to continue developing future products.  The place where this is the most frustrating is with new hire requisitions.  Hiring freezes are common so reqs are frozen just as soon as they are open and they make it impossible for current employees to find other opportunities inside the company.

There are also very few Americans being hired in technical roles and the ones that do get hired seem to leave after a few years.  I am not sure if this is because hiring managers are choosing Chinese over Americans or if Americans holding Ph.D.s simply do not want to work at AMAT.  While this is not a tangible negative, it adds doubt about a lot of things.  I find it troubling because top Ph.D. programs in the US still have a majority or a high fraction of students being American and they do not all go into Academia.  I think this trend is due to a failure in recruiting practices and in employee retention and I would like to see the company address these problems moving forward.

At applied materials your day to day will vary between departments and managers. 

Applied likes to use managment as a tool to balance headcount so they may use tools given to them in your employment contract to make working there while maintaining Psychological health and a good life balance difficult. 

Ultimately if you are experienced in diplomacy and keep your head down you will do just fine. 

the most difficult times for AMAT are when there is economic downturn such as the falling through of the CHIPS act, the covid pandemic, and trade war with certain forign nations. 

overtime is mandatory and i along with my team were  made to work 60 hour work weeks for a year. 

even if there was nothing to do we were still expected to work 10 hours. 

calling off on a non scheduled work day was still counted against you. leaving at 8 hours even with prior notice was still counted against you. 

in hindsight this was probably a tactic to get people to quit on their own terms since Full time employees are more difficult to lay off. 

Though applied offeres college classes and continued education my manager canceled all requests for classes. 

with one day a week to commit to life maintenance tasks i was unable to see friends and family and unable to manage basic life maintenance  tasks effectively greatly increasing the risk of burnout. 

the benefits at applie are great with a employee stock purchase program that makes saving money easier and from what i hear they take care of their people very well at higher levels. 

the manufacturing floor is enjoyable work with good documentation and adequate training, and i imagine their continuing education programs are superb for advancing. 

applied materials is a wonderful place to build up savings, build a professional network and gain experience working in semiconductors. 

it is not recommended if you wish to maintain a wrok life balance and do not do well with diplomacy.

I joined Applied Materials almost 3 years ago as the Repair, Rework, and Cost Setting Financial Analyst. In our team-driven environment, our group is known for delivering world class service internally to a number of business critical processes supporting all major organizations globally branching from: Planning/Sourcing, Procurement, Human Resources, Manufacturing, Logistics and Fulfillment, R&D, and Corporate upper management. As an analyst on the Inventory and Variance team, I have received exposure to many of these major groups and dealt with specific business units thus far. My time spent within my team over the past years has given me the opportunity to learn more about the major business group we service (Spares and Service, a group that accounts for nearly a third of company-wide revenue stream), and everything related to reporting/accounting for inventory financially within a large manufacturing company. As such the specific variances I have had exposure to (Repair and Rework, Inventory Shrinkage, Inventory Scrap) have led me to strengthening my accounting/reconciliation and analytic skills overall. During my time with my team I have successfully closed multiple Quarters while following the strict accounting cycle. Throughout any given quarter I have reconciled General Ledger accounts, forecasted and assessed Reserves/P&L impact to a specific variance, prepared and dealt with Internal and External audit requirements (SOX Com testing, KPMG External audit requirements at fiscal start/interim/year-end prior to 10K Release), completed required and ad-hoc analysis, updated/reported actuals based on corporate requirements, and facilitated constant process improvement. Overall my time with Applied Materials has been challenging, rewarding, and has helped build my accounting and analytical skills.

My first 30 days my trust for the company was damaged. From the start things seemed shady and unconventional. I was put on shift and I didn’t feel confident in doing that because I was still brand new and didn’t know squat. My training was botched in the classroom and treated like a vacation. I was micromanaged and judged by my coworkers and left to figure things out on my own. Constantly felt lost and confused about daily tasks. Meetings were mostly shooting the bull and not much about the days plans. Never was able to feel confident about my roles and responsibilities. I never was able to set myself into a good work rhythm. I worked here almost two years. Before I left I was selected for a one time large raise and that threw up a red flag for me, and here’s why. I had already put my two weeks in and so they chose me for a raise because they knew they wouldn’t have to continue paying me at that wage increase for the next x amount of years. It was waisted on me instead of a more deserving coworker or other employee.

I came in at a bad time and was scheduled for training in Taiwan but never made it out there due to COVID-19. My career at AMAT got started on the rocks and I suffered from there. I was paid well the benefits were good the people overall were c+ characters at best. I’m an individual who needs support from the team to be a well oiled cog in the machine. Dry Etch Boise ID CE II

The corporate culture is 'Silicon Valley' - a flat management style where results matter.  There are no 'silos':  the workers are expected to go anywhere and interact with anyone, without restriction, to accomplish their objectives.  Managers are there to clear roadblocks.

In return for an unfettered work environment, the workers are evaluated on their performance - and if the performance is excellent, they are richly rewarded.  If their performance is not excellent, they should be looking around for another job.  The industry is cyclical, and layoffs occur roughly every 18 months or so.  Regardless if you are a worker or a manager, if you do not demonstrate consistent, superior performance, you should be looking around for work elsewhere.

Because Applied is the #1 global manufacturer of capital equipment, the expectations are sky-high.  Competition is fierce, and Applied competes on a global basis.  

Applied sells their products worldwide because they are the best in the world, with the fastest time to market.  The typical product horizon is released in 90 days or less - the longest is 6 months, and that is rare.  This is generally not the environment for a work/life balance - the emphasis is on being #1 with rapid deliveries.  

On the plus side, working at Applied is the opportunity to demonstrate superior performance in a world-class organization.

Working hard at the company can definitely pay off. Keep your head down and work hard as a contractor. Once you get hired as a full time employee you can be a more lax since it’s harder (but not impossible) to fire full time employees. Push to learn other areas, cross train, and if you’re willing to add to your workload, push for a higher position. Management is doing their best but it’s best to keep your head down. You’ll start to notice some sketchy stuff between certain employees and management. They tend to favor certain employees regardless of the number of HR cases against them. Favoritism is high and very noticeable. Hours aren’t that great either if you’re looking for a good work/life balance, but the checks are big and worth it if you don’t care about having a life outside of work. Mandatory overtime, 10 hour days (plus saturdays and sometimes sundays) but double time on sundays depending on how much you’ve worked prior on that week. If you end up getting a higher position be prepared to get some weird looks and accusations against you. Some people will lie to management to paint you in a bad light for their own benefit. Many S.A. stories here involving employees that should’ve been fired long ago. Very repetitive work, it gets easier after a while. Co-workers make the job bearable due to the long hours. 

Customer Engineer (Associate II) for XP Producer Etch
     Troubleshoot faults that developed both during and after install at IMFT plant
     Help with down load of software and maintain software on the tool
     Involved on 9 XP Producer Etch tool installs from the time it hit the dock to the time of release to the   customer
     Main person on return and orders of RF generators and other spare parts for the Etch Team
     Trained 8 or more persons on how to do returns, the paperwork that goes with the returns, and location to ship the product out
     Learning new software troubleshooting techniques with motion logs, FDA files (troubleshooting broken wafer issues), and RF generators problems
     Continues training for IMFT personnel on how to do calibrations of different parts of the tool (please ask), replace parts on the tool, and on how to reboot the tool
     Team player working to keep the customer and management informed on what the tools are doing by either face to face or Excel pass down communications
     Set up different tracking logs for info that would be used to help troubleshoot different issues to the tool
     Maintain and replace hand tools as well as test equipment (made sure they were sent out for cal on time) that were missing or need special tools and cables for installing and testing on the tool

Easy work once you got it down.  It help if you are hand on and handy with hand tools.

Mandatory overtime.

Incompeteent Management all the way up.  Your schedule is not going to be stable.  It is subject to change anytime.  Zero respect for your time.

Bad quality production.  Poor pay, poor training, lax enforcement on quality.  All add up to poor product at the end of the line.  People are planning to leave left and right.

No training, swim or sink.  You will be pair with someone in the area if you're lucky paired with someone that's kind enough to train you then you're going to be ok else you struggle.  Training doesn't get extra pay.  Also, new employees are likely to get pay alot more than the trainer...so yeah.  They ain't training you.  Average length of workers who work there is 1.5 year.  Rate of quitting 10/100 workers.  Don't be suprise to see your coworker just disappear or a group of fresh blood show up.

Here are the goods.
1.  You will be top dog if you like overtime.  Show up to work.
2.  8.5k /year tuition reimbursement
3.  As long as you show up to work, keep your head down you get convert to permanent.  Also, it is hard to fire permanent employee (not impossible)
4.  The workers are of poor quality, as long as you perform average... you're already top dog.  Job security right there.




What is the best part of working at the company?
Their values focused  on  the ethical business practices and supported their employees and customers fostering a open, trusting transparent environment to bring up issues and their ideas to resolve them. People who I engage with as a HR contractor were genuinely nice people and supportive. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Multiple caseload and their IT had different protocols for contractors vs employees. Our interface was restricted so video conferencing, sharing a views were limited. I didn't know this or my colleaguesat the time so my startup experience working remotely was impacted. I was fortunate enough my home office was close to the campus and I was able to resolve some of my issues and receive authorized privileges to access data and applications that I needed to do my daily tasks  I have to say it was awful experience at first. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
People, management and employees were good at making me feel welcome. They were friendly and approachable.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Process engineer 23 salaries reported	$142,935 per year
Mechanical engineer 12 salaries reported	$132,126 per year
Engineering technician 2 salaries reported	$29.81 per hour
Manufacturing engineer 10 salaries reported	$102,305 per year
Senior process engineer 4 salaries reported	$141,325 per year

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