process engineer

equipment engineer

engineer

principal software engineer

maintenance technician

GlobalFoundries

I've been working here a little over 2 years at this point. I took the Shift Engineer role on nights, with the expectation that after a couple years or so it would be an easy integration into an equipment engineer role (I mean...that is why I got an engineering degree in the first place). WRONG. I have been trying to get off nights for several months now. Talked to all the managers in my department and just am being given the runaround. Applied for all the open reqs for equipment engineers on site, these are all INTERNAL hiring positions, and never received any sort of follow-up email for any of them. So, as-is, I'm stuck here for the moment until one of the managers decides to finally try and put me in a better role (months later), or until I get a better job elsewhere. 

All that being said, it wasn't all bad at first. As the shift engineer I'm working hands-on with the technician teams and have learned soooo much. Really, the best way to learn the tools is by being hands-on with the technicians. It's just that after some time, I've seen all the typical faults and recurring issues. I'm doing nothing unless there's a major tool fault, which doesn't happen terribly often. And what's worst, is that being on nights really limits what I can do as far as engineering projects, as anything you can think of requires collaboration and working with the tool or process owners....and at that point, why would they give it to a night shifter when they can either: 1) do it themselves, or 2) give it to the SE on days (which makes more sense from their perspective).
Unfortunately, all this means that there is not a whole lot of room for growth. Contributions on nights aren't recognized by engineers and managers on days, so a promotion is a pipe dream. 

On to the rest...management is lacking in a lot of places. We just had a whole restructuring of managers and staff, and literally nothing has changed because the managers STILL aren't helping to increase accountability and communication between nights/days, engineers/technicians. 

Managers and higher-level roles get a 10% annual bonus, everybody else is given up to 110% of 5% of annual income depending on fab performance. Annual raise is laughable. Promotions in general are a joke, mainly based on just how long you've been there instead of knowledge or ability. I've seen lvl 1 technicians doing lvl 2 or 3 work, but haven't been there long enough for the bump. And when they do get promoted, the pay raise is laughable. 

GF offers consistently lower than industry average pay, especially for technicians. (Fun note about that - during our company all hands meeting someone asked if there's anything in place to address that, and the manager's response was "if you don't like it you can leave!" Glad to know how you value your employees!!!) Benefits aren't that bad, though. I get that last year was GFs first profitable year, but that profit was in the BILLIONS of dollars. Whereas we have engineers who do nothing and ignore the issues on the tools all day making close to or above 6 figures. Again, no accountability. 

What management needs to understand is that the employees that are here with 15 plus years experience are here to help the company succeed. Most of them do not have college degrees but when it comes to running a fab they can run circles around any "fresh" college grad. Management doesn't understand that to those people with all this experience and pride in what they do, this is not a job, it's a career, it's their livelihood. The college grad that did not train with the experienced person isn't learning the process or the values and loyalty, they can and will go to a better paying job at any minute... But you do not reward the experienced employees or pay them what they are worth or treat them with the respect they deserve. The college graduates should be learning from the experienced employees and then you would have the most successful foundry company in the world. Most experienced employees 2 years contracts are coming up and you all are ignorant enough to watch each one walk out the door, taking success with them.
Some of the best workers in the world work or worked here.  They take pride in there work and tend to be loyal but after being taken advantage of and not being compensated or recognized it wears you down.  Upper Management and HR try to micromanage every part of this company.  They go as far as not allowing the managers above the fab employees to have the freedom to reward the employees that are earning it.  HR and upper management has to make the decision on what kind of raise or promotion the employee gets, although they know nothing about you or what you do.  HR micromanages everything and most of the HR reps are 23 year old college graduates who have no experience and this is their first job.  They are making decisions that affect the company and the employees with the mindset of "because I said so".  This company has the attitude that the answer to all the problems are hiring employees fresh out of college before they even complete college.  They treat people with experience as if they are not worthy and should feel lucky to work here.  It is not a good atmosphere to work in.  If you want to join a frat house then Globalfoundries is the place to be.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES doesn't know how to connect its global teams together even though it claims that to be a core of its purpose. There are multiple facilities all around the world all of which have either totally different or barely connected systems. In the effort of bringing theses systems together, they remove funding from all of them and make you beg for pennies just to continue to work. Until it becomes a problem that stops wafers, little attention is given to it. This might be financially sound but can mean your purpose in the company goes unfunded with no future roadmap overnight.

Promotions within this company are based far more on arbitrary metrics of time invested than actual work performance or capability. Don't expect more than 1 or 2 promotions per department per year. Don't expect off cycle pay increases, promotions, or job role changes. You will have to fight for every penny you want as an internal applicant to a position. They would often rather hire someone externally for thousands more per year then give you a pay increase greater than 10%, no matter how much of a promotion you get.

Management is dangerously short sighted in some departments, and able to bend the whole world in others. The common thread between good and bad departments is how effective the manager is at getting their friends to do what they want. HR runs the company far more than management decisions do by controlling and authorizing every promotion, pay adjustment, or title. DO NOT WORK HERE IF YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR 4 YEAR ENGINEERING DEGREE. You will not be given the time of day for advancement without one.

Senior leadership is promising but in the execution of their vision don't spend enough time focusing on the people problems created as a result. Attempting to drive profitability for a global company will result in all your contractors getting laid off, your systems without further support, and the people involved with those systems left in the dust trying to find something to make them valuable.

If you're interested in working in this industry, GF might be a decent place to start and then leave from. It also might be a decent place to come into if you have a lot of experience. Don't count on it as a long-term destination.

Management is by far better manned than the technicians who actually do the work... as people quit and get laid off they don't back-fill those roles, they just expect YOU to do more... demand it. Our engineers are all recent college graduates that don't know the equipment, the industry, how to relate to people, how to collaborate, etc... typical immature 24 year olds with a piece of paper and zero professional experience. Which means they lean on the technicians A LOT to make up for their shortcomings... and there's literally 5 or 6 "engineers" for every toolset.. should be one EE and one PE... but they are so incompetent they need 2-3 EE and 2-3 PE to handle it. The engineers are always 'too busy' to do their own jobs so their work gets passed to you, tho it appears their time is completely filled with  meetings... they are zero, or very little, value-added people. Yet the cubicles are a ghost town on a Friday afternoon... hmm?? There is no accountability for bad work and brown nosing will assure you get the promo over the techs that are actually solving problems and doing good work. If you have industry experience working for any other Semi conductor manufacturer, do NOT apply here.. you will be very frustrated. Intel, Samsung, Micron all have their pros and cons.. but they are FAR better companies to work for. Do not expect more than a 2% yearly raise, do not expect bonuses, do not expect stock options or any kind of profit sharing.. the best they do here is match your 401k contributions, up to only 3%. They've also had 4 layoffs since I started working here 3 1/2 years ago... maintenance techs are usually safe since we are always understaffed, but the labs, admin, and engineering get hit really hard every time.

The summer internship at GlobalFoundries provides interns with an experience that allows them to immerse themselves in the company through projects, shadowing, and networking opportunities. A lot of my time as an intern was spent shadowing, asking questions, and learning. GlobalFoundries is filled with intelligent individuals who are open to answering all of your questions. I also enjoyed being able to lead my intern project, but still having support from my team by my side at all times. I learned (and am still learning) all about the manufacturing process that a semiconductor goes through and all the comprehensive steps it needs to go through until it's in its final product. The culture is pretty intense. Since it's semiconductor manufacturing, you feel the pressure that the engineers face there to make sure no product is being scrapped. Also, although everyone is kind when you talk to them, everyone is also extremely introverted, and it is difficult to make personal connections, especially outside your department, which can make the company culture feel lonely and isolating outside of meetings and technical talk. The best part of being an intern was being able to shadow all the departments that make semiconductors possible. I was able to work closely with the automation team even though they weren't in the module I was in, which was fascinating and a great learning experience, especially for someone like me who is interested in automation. Overall, the engineering environment is incredible, but unfortunately, the culture and the site's location can make the job isolating and lonely at times. 

Just in my conversations with other employees, I have heard repeated many of the complaints that others have noted in their reviews. There are numerous brilliant people employed at this facility, but they all perform tasks well below their potential ability. Management is relatively hands-off, unless upper management or off-site dignitaries have a complaint; then you can't get rid of them for days or weeks on end. The facility itself is already deteriorating in ways one would never think of for a building constructed less than five years prior, and repairs or "sprucing" is very slow to come unless the area is in or around the administrative (read: public) sectors. Image matters more than most things, if not anything else. Interdepartmental communication is abysmal. Management will tout safety one moment, then demand workers to perform tasks that, if made aware of to the authorities, would get both parties fired. Work itself is mundane (even in technology, from what I've been told) and repetitive. Loss of focus and ethic is common among most. Ultimately, I would not recommend GF as an employer... assuming you have the patience to wait upwards of six months for a job OFFER after multiple interviews. There are better employers out there.

A foundry is built on serving multiple customers to distribute the fixed expenses across the product portfolio.  As the geometries shrink the challenges are the extreme difficulty to yield.  In addition, there are fewer customers who can afford the expense to drive the 14nm and 10nm technology nodes.  

On the flip side, everything must work in unison from the subfab, infrastructure, and process area. If not, expect production yields to fluctuate or continue to be low. 

Now let's take GF which is a greenfield production area with a collection of people from all over the world.  What happened was entropy and chaos took over to where the company is today.  Bringing things back into order is more difficult than just installing a bunch of expensive equipment and expecting it to work along with bringing new customers.

Customers want on time delivery and good yield to take the risk with expensive investments of mask sets, new product introduction, etc. With GF it's not evident that the above is fully understood from both the technical and business point of view.  

Given the above scenario, in order to bring the company back into some type of order is a monumental task.  If this was an IPO, it probably wouldn't be underwritten, so the best thing to do is recreate it with a sale that will most likely benefit a very small percentage of the population within the organization.  

As for the state of NY ... at least the building is white (elephant).

The good:  Pay is decent for the work.  The work itself is not physically demanding, though you will walk A LOT (I personally do between 10 to 15 miles in a 12 hour shift - If you're the kind of person who tracks steps, this is the gig for you).  The benefits and time off are, in my experience, top notch.  80 hours sick leave, a separate 150 hours vacation leave, and 10 holidays paid for, whether or not you work them.  In all, not bad as far as compensation goes.

The "meh" or "bad":  12 hour shifts.  If you do overnights, they're long and somewhat boring.  But the overall weekly schedule of 3 days on one week and 4 days on the next is at least stable.  And the work shifts do come with 2 hours worth of breaks (only 30 minutes of which are unpaid).  If you work days...still 12 hours, but good luck navigating the on/off work cycle.  Nothing nearly as simple as nights.

Also part of the bad:  Severely understaffed.  To the point where only 2 to 3 people a shift are ever allowed to take time off.  I suspect this is due to the 12 hour work schedule.  They just can't seem to keep people on board with it.

Good news though:  Management is good.  Run by decent people, they don't make you feel talked down to or as if they're better than you.  They  try to fill in where possible and really show that they care.  If nothing else, that's something rare and good.

Overall, not a bad company to work for, sans the 12 hour shifts.

A typical day for would be to communicate any issues between shifts and prioritizing work tasks.  Work with engineering to perform experiments for process improvement.  Address management, engineering, vendors, troubleshoot equipment alarms, operation tasks, prepare tools for production by ensuring a ready state and escalate as necessary.
I have a strong work ethic and value safety above all else.  I help collect data for EHS to ensure safe work environment and report any safety issues to management. I have great relationships with my managers.
I value the diversity and teamwork within my organization, as we all collectively are one team with common goals.  I believe in treating others how I'd like to be treated. I accept and give constructive criticism and use the chain of command. I appreciate and recognize my teammates with the rewards system, and work together to resolve issues.
The hardest part is getting some changes to happen and working with incompetent people.
The most enjoyable part of my job is training others, resolving issues, being a good role model for performance and behaviors and seeing others grow and become successful.

GF fab9 is a good place to cut your teeth in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. It’s been around forever and there is a lot of knowledge and experience to be tapped into working with the old ibm engineers that have been there since 1980. Loads of inventions have come out of here so it’s cool to work alongside some of the people who helped pioneer the industry. That being said It’s a completely manual fab running on 25 year old equipment which is a constant struggle. This is the sort of place where you can work really hard without  accomplishing all that much which can be super mentally draining. None of the hardware coming out of there is even remotely close to leading edge which can leave something to be desired if you want to feel like you’re working on something innovative and novel. Work Environment is pretty run of the mill corporate America. Pressure for engineers can get high at times but usually isn’t too bad. If you’re a manager you’ll be stressed pretty regularly. Pay is super mediocre, could be worse I suppose but not great. Overall if your primary goal is to have a big career in semiconductor manufacturing i would say it’s a good place to start but not a great place to stay long term. If your primary goal is to live in the Burlington area it’s not bad

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Process engineer 14 salaries reported	$109,943 per year
Equipment engineer 11 salaries reported	$82,168 per year
Engineer 14 salaries reported	$106,817 per year
Principal software engineer 8 salaries reported	$114,044 per year
Maintenance technician 3 salaries reported	$50,217 per year

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