Difficult place to work - Anonymous employee AMD Employee Review

2.0
Aug 15, 2010
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Relaxed workplace atmosphere. Not a high stress work environment. Lots of company communication. Food wasn't very good, but usually don't expect it to be from a company cafeteria. Good peers in engineering team to work with. Friendly workers. Clear company direction. Good salary and benefits. Good HR. Overall good work environment.

Cons

Mostly Asian language (Chinese mostly) spoken, very hard to get information that you normally get just from being in the office and listening to others' conversations. Couldn't jump into someone else's conversation happening at the cubicle next door since it was all in Chinese. Lots and lots of Chinese spoken in the hallways and even in meetings. I was one of 5 non-Asians and I was surprised at how much non-English is spoken openly. I tend to think that if you are going to speak a non-English language, you do that privately with your group. Especially not in meetings or places where others are there who can't speak your language.

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Pros

work life balance, good team

Cons

fast releases, no much events

4.0
Apr 13, 2026
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Pros

It's a big company. So, a lot of great benefits and high pay. Also, a lot of opportunity for career advancement and internal transfers if a particular job/team doesn't fit (to avoid losing RSUs). Plus, they're not too hard on you regarding performance since all the performance reviews are qualitative rather than quantitative (that could be both a pro and a con, honestly).

Cons

It's a big company. So, a lot of bureaucracy. They get in the way of themselves requiring endless approvals for spending. Also small organizations within AMD being territorial about their particular domain rather than being as open as possible inhibits rapid progress. Also, pushing for "diversity and inclusion" is racist. They should ignore race, not try to have a representative sampling of the population. I give them a low score there because DEI is racist. But not minimal because it's only something the HR dept cares about, normal employees effectively ignore race from what I can tell. So even if management is woke, the company (the individuals) are not.

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