principal software engineer

senior staff engineer

intern

engineer

senior engineer

Marvell Technology

I was hired as a Senior Buyer with Marvell Semiconductor in 2005 and was promoted to Purchasing Manager in 2008.  My duties included the supervision of a Purchasing Dept. which included 4 Buyers and an Administrative Assistant as well as executing the responsibilities of the Business Travel Dept.  
A typical day of work included the review and approval of purchases made by the team of buyers to ensure best practices, best pricing, and vendor selection criteria was met.  I also negotiated large purchases in conjunction with other end user groups such as Engineering, IT, Facilities, etc....I met with Suppliers regularly and reviewed their ability to meet Marvell's cost targets, service levels.  I wrote and/or updated Marvell's Purchasing Policies and Procedures.

Working with Management at Marvell was a unique experience.  The CEO and CFO were very "Hands On" and their review of purchase orders and pricing and sign off on Policies and Procedures tended to sometimes hold up the necessary time demands for timely execution.  The CFO created an atmosphere of a hostile work environment for his subordinates through practices of bullying, intimidation.   This was also the hardest part of the job.

The most enjoyable part of the job was working in a team environment with my staff of Buyers and members of other departments to negotiate large contracts, or to improve internal processes within the organization.  It was very rewarding to take a team approach, gather information, work together, and obtain a favorable cost savings, process improvement, new and improved source of supply, etc....

I had rich and rewarding experiences with my co-workers and valued the relationships that developed through my interactions with them.  I daily interfaced with members of Engineering, Operations, Finance depts. and really enjoyed my experience working in a fast-paced, challenging environment with such good people.

Marvell consistently hires very smart and talented staff resulting in a great opportunity to be surrounded by high intelligence. The down side is if you or your job are not viewed as critical then opportunities for your career growth are limited.

The founders are extremely capable engineers who keep the secrets of their technical advancements to themselves because they understand the consequences of today's highly interchangeable employee pool can have on the transfer of such information to competitors.

It is unusual for "nerdy" engineers to effectively maneuver the investor relations gauntlet and political environment that leading a public company requires but these executives have effectively learned the ropes.

The husband and wife leadership team are more than a marriage by chance - he the brilliant electronics engineer and she the daughter of a founder of the largest independent semiconductor manufacturer in the world with substantial financial resources. Their dreams were bound to come true.

Total commitment to the company is demanded and long hours are expected. Failure is not tolerated and weak perfomers are quickly culled. But the reward is a highly dynamic work environment, extraordinary opportunities to learn, and a leadership team that really cares about their employees.

Marvell is a company of Have's and Have-not's.   If you're an executive, you are incredibly happy and taken care of and find yourself in the know of what's going on and very much feel part of the Marvell team.   And there are a crazy number of executives.     If you're not an executive, your management does not care about your career, career growth, or really anything else other than how many hours you can work every day and their own career trajectory.   Non-executives are do-work resources and not career people and have no visibility outside of their small sphere.   There seems to be no real professional management training nor any measurement of people mgmt.
Base salary is quite low, but the saving grace is Marvell stock has been going up fast and there is a decent stock plan so those two things make resources more sticky than they otherwise would be.  And a flexible work from home policy today, is also positive.     But if this goes away, then Marvell's employee holding power will disappear, unless of course you're an executive in which case you're always smiling.    

Marvell has acquired several companies over the last couple of years, and thus far has done a poor job of integrating the cultures of these new acquisitions (which make up around half the total workforce at this point). The words which come to mind to describe the manner in which Marvell has dealt with their newly acquired employees would be arrogant, dismissive, disinterested, and condescending; an odd attitude to take after spending large amounts of money to buy people who bring skills, knowledge, and experience in markets and products with which Marvell itself has limited (or no) experience. It may very well be that Marvell's legacy employees have reached a point of integration fatigue and have used up their reservoir of "play nice and be patient and respectful of the newbies". Understandable on a human behavior level, but toxic for the company.

Marvell Semiconductor is one of the key players in the semiconductor market and design billion chips per year. It’s an excellent company to work for to learn new things every day. Marvell has a lot of talented and professional group of people working there.  The company also provides good benefits, competitive salary and perks. Especially, they have an excellent cafeteria here is Santa Clara location. I had an amazing experience and fun time working there. Everyone was helpful and shared wonderful work culture. 

Marvell Semiconductor is a great company if you are hardworking, self-driven and up for challenging work environment.

A high end chip design and sales company (outsourced fab).
Largely Mandarin speaking culture, smart tech people, poor managers in most departments, hierarchical structure, poor cross functional communication, departmental fiefdoms.  
Fancy facilities, good gym and cafeteria, free food, good location and parking.
They are happy to exploit HB1 visa employees, often very sweatshop-ish.  NOT an easy going American Silicon Valley culture, but overall, nice people.
Stock price is volatile, no real gains over many years.  They DO make and sell good high end chips for cool stuff like iPhones.  The CEO and his wife are huge shareholders, so it's pretty much his company.

If you are looking for a place where you work 9-5 doing A thing, can take lots of time off, long lunches and leave early on Friday, then this is possibly the place for you.  If on the other hand, you are looking to make a difference/impact in the world, learn a lot, and feel like you are building something amazing while working with high performance people, look elsewhere. The shear number of IT, HR, Finance people in conjunction with the decision making hierarchy/overhead at this company will suck the living soul out of you in less than 6 months.

Top management still manages the company in a way as if it still mom and pop business. They try to save every penny ridiculously; bonuses and benefits hardly improve even though the company is sitting on a pile of cash.

Marvell has a very talented group of engineers but I'm not sure how long they can keep them with this culture of micro-managing. Many of the engineers left the company recently and they also laid off many engineers to save "cost" without proper notice or reasonable severance package and without discussing with immediate managers.

The company is technology company driven by a technologist, not many high tech companies can say that these days.  Decisions seem to be made with advancing the technical prowess and long term growth of the company rather than short term profit.  My colleagues are top notch and unified in the pursuits of the company.  The hardest part of the job is working through very complex issues and dealing with multi-cultural communication styles of a multinational company, but seeing our chips successfully integrated into our customer's products is a real kick.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Pay is better than other companies in this area. However, job is not that much interesting.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Manager was extremely micromanaging. Very long hours of work but not satisfying at all.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Unlimited time off, but must be approved by the director if more than 2 weeks. Health and stock purchase plan were great. People were nice.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Long hours. Depending on the manager your life may suck.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Principal software engineer 8 salaries reported	$202,003 per year
Senior staff engineer 2 salaries reported	$173,350 per year
Intern 3 salaries reported	$41.33 per hour
Engineer 1 salary reported	$40.00 per hour
Senior engineer 1 salary reported	$112,080 per year

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