Applied Materials reviews

The culture is highly politicized. Organizations devolve into warring camps in which giving ground on a issue (technical, operational, financial) is seen as a losing power. Business unit leaders and their direct staff seem to spend more time competing with other internal divisions than with Applied's competitors. Key operations decisions are superficially fact-based but in reality depend more on who is currently in or out of favor with key operations executives. Applied has and continues to make a huge investment in the solar business but in my estimate has neither the the technology nor the business model to be successful. It will be interesting to see how many solar factory contracts are landed in the new capital market environment. Probably not many.

There is little if any career path at AMAT. Many people have worked in the same role for several years because they are afraid to move into other areas of the company - which could expose them to a higher probability of being laid off. The high number of layoffs over the past several years have hurt worker's morale and the overall culture. Ten years ago, this was a very exciting a vibrant company to build a career with and there were many young people being recruited into the organization. Today, the company has changed, and it is not the exciting place that it once was. Career advancement and opportunities are not as prevalent within the organization as they once were making it hard to advance or build a career at this company.