senior engineer

senior staff engineer

engineer

firmware engineer

intern

Seagate Technology

Very poor management almost across the board, engineering to upper management. This has costed the company greatly over the years. Errors and miscalculations continue to bring the company down, maybe too much damage has been done. There was a time when the company was on the right path but those days are long gone. Acquisitions needed to stay on par but that won't help for MN operations. I'd stay away from at least the MN operations unless you want to deal with an unstable workplace and layoffs on a regular basis. Pay has come down over the years, not bad but not on par with many companies in the area. Voluntary turnover is much higher, in fact it is pretty common over the past 10 years where previously voluntary turnover was almost non existent. Non voluntary layoffs have always been common, they seem to be about every year or every other year. Part of how the company operates. Job satisfaction is very low, as one would expect with the layoffs and unstable business sector. The things that make a company great are gone, so it is understandable why many of the great employees have left or are leaving. This, along with management weeding out older employees with experience is obviously a money saver but ultimately weakens the product quality due to this lack of experience.  This continues to weaken a company that is already weak and has positioned the company further and further away from what would be considered a quality company and a good place to work. Replacing older Engineers demonstrates a lack of leadership and poor decisions in management. Not able to place employees in positions to utilize their experience, and why would a directive like this be public in the first place? It is in poor taste if nothing else. It shows no loyalty to employees, so expect none in return. Just more and more questionable management decisions by poor management across the board. Talking about Bloomington, MN  Engineering Development and Production Engineering as well as IT the worst of the worst. Maintenance management very poor as well. Production management isn't as bad.

Being given an opportunity to expand beyond the technical side of IT and into a business role was exactly what I was looking for. Tasks and projects that I undertook were at the scope and level of IT/business relations that I desired, making me truly feel passionate about what I was doing from day-to-day; big-picture ideas.

However, it wasn't long at all, months really, before budgets became extremely constrained and within my first year at Seagate I had survived my first brush with a layoff. Unfortunately, the environment never really rebounded and mentalities became stagnant and wary. My days went from being engaging, truly loving what I was researching, to an overall feeling of futility in knowing that what I was working on stood no chance at being approved even as a development environment or proof of concept.

Sure enough, within a year from the initial round of layoffs, the end of the fiscal year was fast approaching and there had already been rumblings amongst employees about yet another layoff. This one I did not survive and was let go.

All things being equal, I loved the work that I was able to do, but without hope for any of it actually being used and the fact that a day didn't go by where there wasn't talk or rumors about a layoff, the overall experience was awful. 

Everyone I spoke with before being hired said Seagate was a great company to work for, they take care of their employees, and that it's very stable. While that very well might have been the case at one point in time, it's by no means the same company today. It's been relegated a standard cost-cutting company that's just trying to keep the lights on.

The workday was consistently 8 to 5, Monday through Friday and Seagate provided the necessary tools to succeed in assisting customers who contacted support by social media, email and phone. I worked a 9:30 to 6:30 shift and each day received two, 15 minute breaks and a 1 hour lunch. Until the last year I was with Seagate we had paid holidays on Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day, Presidents Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day. 
I learned quite a lot about hard drive products and software, interface types, marketing, and required documentation that is included with products along with safety documentation. I also learned about online ecommerce sales, shipping and receiving, customs, warranty policies, data recovery and lost shipment investigations, and the differences of many of these aspects globally.
Management continually had dialogue with all employees to address concerns, share information, updates to product portfolios, changes to support, and assisted agents with continuous improvement with customers and also to grow within the company to new positions. People at Seagate helped one another to ensure our customers came first. It was an open office culture where you could ask anyone questions. We had quarterly events to increase moral and team exercises to learn more about each other personally. 
The hardest part of the job was the challenge of keeping up with the constant changes to support and products. 
The most enjoyable part was meeting people from all walks of life. I worked with people from Brazil, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Great Britain, Amsterdam and many more countries and it was a great experience.

- Day to day tasks are fairly repetitive, working in a cleanroom, little excitement.  Occasionally, there is an opportunity to create or refine a process or program. The work comes and goes in surges, some dead periods where people are light on work and get to do side projects, and some periods where the work can't be done quickly enough.
- There is a lot to learn about magnetic recording storage, my department had a "learn for yourself" standpoint.  There is little structure to the material available, so much of the learning process is finding the expert and talking to them, or finding documents someone was thoughtful enough to write and post.
- Management is probably similar to elsewhere, they highlight key tasks and assign people to them.  Not all management has an extensive understanding or background of the people they manage, something that strikes me as odd in a research facility.
- Co-workers are helpful when interest is shown in their work, many engineers are introverts by nature, so be aware.
- Hardest part of the job is people interaction, there are cliques and people do not readily share their knowledge (this keeps them valuable).  Also, this seems to be a company that tries to pay as little as possible for most employees, not strikingly different from most companies, I suppose.
- While many people seem to be wisdom misers, there are a handful of extremely knowledgeable people I have had the joy of working with that share their info freely.  Being stuck on a problem and working through it is greatly satisfying, sometimes just a piece of info is all it takes.

A typical day at work involves people from all cultures and countries united in reaching well-defined goals. We are clear about our customers, and find our common ground in service to the best of our ability.

Learning is a constant! The infrastructure is ever expanding, ever progressing and the trainings are excellent. The company is dynamic to the extreme.

The hardest part of the job is also a very delightful part. Because our closest partnerships span various time zones, we stretch to meet together in shared environment. This results in long hours sometimes, or strange hours -- beginning at 5am on some days, and ending at 9pm on others. The relationships developed in this way are founded in gratitude and understanding. 

Mostly, I experience joy in my work. Any innovative idea is met with a listening, no matter what the level in the company. Example: Eight of us spanning 5 different sites formed a committee and went about attaining beneficial ground in acknowledgment and training for administrative professionals in the US for our company. After several years of innovation and committed forward movement by the committee, admins within our firm receive monthly trainings, certificates, with bonuses and raises based on their participation. Further, executives know that whenever a new program or application is to be launched within the company, this team of admins is the first to be involved. The openings we have received to serve the company community have been tremendous.

I enjoyed working here, I learned a lot and met a lot of great people. The pay was competitive and depending on the project demands, it CAN be a fairly low-key place to work. 

Unfortunately, some teams are very "old-school" and a lot of the management has worked here for 30+ years and are fairly set in their ways. There are a lot of strict 8 to 5 style managers that expect their teams to follow a rigid schedule, despite being explicitly NOT a part of company policy. They also have bizarrely high rates of cutting entire departments and then slowly rebuilding them for a few years, then rinse and repeat. 

Lots of layoffs and an industry that has been "about to be run over by SSD storage" (which everyone has been saying for about 25 years, by the way) leads to a very paranoid and cynical attitude in some of the employees, especially as they get in the 15-year window towards retirement, which really drags the culture down. 

They have "unlimited vacation" but what that really means is that you don't EARN any vacation, so you have to strongarm managers into letting you take time off. Rumor is they're keeping track of everyone's attendance anyway, so there effectively IS a vacation limit, you just don't know what that limit is, and it's completely at someone else's discretion. Would be a great policy if they actually meant it. 

Working at Seagate has its pros and cons. I have learned a lot wokring there and don't regret it but leaving was the best thing I could have done. It was draining me mentally and emottionaly. When you go home everyday crying you know its time for an exchange.

The job is very easy and pays really well. The benefits are great once you become an offical employee. 

Management is not very good. They don't seem to care about the employees. They pretend to listen but aren't really. There are a few people there that are great people, but most the people there are suckups and back stabbers. They will do anything they can to move up. Some are so rude to customers and other employees. I've seen several employees make up lies and gossip about others and stab others in the back just to move up. Most of the people that Seagate keeps around are not good people. I lost repect for they company once I realized I there was no room for growth and that Seagate loves to keep terrible people.

That's another thing is that it is very very hard to move up. I worked there for years and tried very hard to move to other departments but you could only move up if you knew someone. 

Anyways the pay is amazing and the benefits are perfect. Those are the 2 reasons I stayed as long as I did.

My daily routine

•Daily update stock that arrive in Brazil Warehouse facility
•Weekly in the conference call with Brazil to debrief issue of returning and exchanging
•Primary contact for Brazil in any escalation involving the corporate dispute or resolution
•Trained new employee in RMA and EDW system
• Plans and monitors the installation of network systems

The hardest part of my job

• The hardest part of my job is the escalation part , when I have to make sense to the customer that data reovery is not part of warranty on the drive, even though the drive failed within 6 month
The most enjoyable part of my job
. The most enjoyable part of my job is when i get the kudos from the customer. In addition I love to get the knowledgement from the top management regarding the Beta product that our team test before, it gets shipped.

How my co-work woutl define me

. My co-workers would describe me as patient and very resourable person in the team, because if they have question I am the first contact

- In my my job I learnt how to Hard drive Industry compete with each other , how they strive to achieve the best product year after year.

A good group of people to work with, though one needs to deal with Seagate's penchant for meetings, meetings, meetings.  This often means working longer than the standard eight hours, and if you are in the Retail group, probably because you are taking meetings at odd/off hours.
The low level managers are good, for the most part, but Seagate is heavy with VPs, and when faced with tough times, its the worker bees that suffer, while VPs seem to keep being added.  Right now Seagate is stuck in the middle of significant RIF actions.
But by far Seagate is suffering more from old thinking more than anything else.  Acquisitions made (Lyve Minds, Xyratex, etc...) make less sense than they should when the market is heading towards flash drive technology.  They purchased the SATA drive business of Samsung, and left the SAS/Flash part on the vine (Samsung has their own flash memory foundry).
It is probably time to merge with a flash company with it's own foundry, but I'm not sure Seagate will make that move in time to prevent it from falling woefully behind the biggest competitor, who's stock symbol start with a 'W', and ends with a 'DC'.

A typical day is spent in front of test instruments in the lab trying to design useful and predictive experiments. Lots of variables to track in the test development process and I try to come up with methods to design around the hurdles. In general, I find this process of designing a test, developing it its maturity and finally deploying it to be an enjoyable process. I've learned lots of new skills including project management, better use of my time, prioritizing the items on my list of job responsibilities.
My manager is always helpful either through one-on-one meeting or other technical meetings. These are open meetings where I present my summary from the test data and other engineers and managers comment on the results. The work environment is pretty good as is my relationship with my colleagues.
Being required to attend too many meetings is a drawback because that essentially takes away time spent on test development. Occasionally, preparing too many presentations also tends to take a lot of time, but that is part of the job. The winter in Minnesota is also discouraging ...

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