Maxis Communications

You can get stuck working long hours on projects with a tight schedule that have not been planned out too well.

Always the underdog. Despite cutting edge technology, we've been behind the competitors financially, and that makes things worse. The outcome of your effort and investment hasn't always been what it ought to be.

There really is too much nepotism. There really is not too much process not there rightly or wrongly. There really is way too much politics. You really do need to be on the hardware team to be respected at all. Being in Software is being on the second class team.

The company can't seem to make money. Products are constantly canceled. Schedules constantly shift. Responsibilities and ownership for common stuff is often unclear. Lots of schedule chicken and passing the buck. Decisions often don't get made at all, or at best they are delayed until the last possible moment.

As with any large corporation, there are re-orgs without much warning or communicated rationale that is tangible and figuring out how to work cross-functionally is left to managers and below. That means make the most of how to get work done and create process where you find there is none. Director and above jobs seem to typically be filled by going outside the company with a few exceptions. HR and execs seem to know this but have yet to do more internal candidate grooming.

none that comes to the mind

Poor bonus and compensation for employees

Among several managers, some are way better than others and are a lot more down-to-earth rather than holier-than-thou. A long term experience here would depend highly on your manager.

Work life balance. Canadian branch (ATI) knows how to maximize employees creativity and commitment by encouraging entrepreneurialism, but U.S. branch (controlling most of AMD) has stifling influence due to excessive process and reporting requirements. Counterproductive to accelerating product introduction pace.

other financial benifits are low