AMD reviews

Management's focus is unclear Too independent No direction given and must seek a direction without much guidance sometimes Very reactive

Unfortunately, AMD is quite old for a tech company, and it shows. To make matters worse, the AMD and ATI merger was not nearly as smooth as it could have been, resulting in a lot of conflicting processes and incompatible data organization styles. Also, while most technical personnel were very reasonable and professional, there were some people in very high positions that let the seniority really go to their head. AMD has been operational for over 40 years, while ATI has been going for 25 years, only 5 of which were as part of AMD. During this time both of these companies saw momentous shifts in technology, and in many cases were right at the center of these shifts. Over such a long time a lot of processes are developed to address a huge range of problems that inevitably arise during operation. Unfortunately, being on the leading wave of technology means that most of these processes could not take advantage of the innovations they help to implement. Once a company of this size defines a number of new processes, standard corporate mentality takes over and the short-term cost of optimizing these processes becomes very difficult to justify on the balance sheets. The result is that these decisions can easily live on for decades, until replacing them becomes an emergency concern, with all of the associated headaches, rushed specifications, and buggy implementations. Of course the existence of competing standards defined within the scope of ATI before it was acquired effectively doubles the number of stakeholders, and makes the problem not only more challenging, but also more pressing. Also as a result of the age of these companies, relevant information is extremely hard to find. The company wide search is about as advanced as a search engine of the mid 1990s, and will only respond to some very creative search term voodoo. Often times the only way to get some information is to ask someone familiar with the topic where to find the data you are looking for. This is not a difficult task when you can ask a team member, but becomes exponentially harder the further away you have to look. Finally, while most personnel, both technical and management, are very helpful and professional, there are a few people in senior positions that are quite the opposite. Over the years, certain people have managed to take control of very large and important projects, and now make working in these project domains extremely difficult. Often these situations are a result of personal or cultural problems, but the resulting political dancing necessary to fix even the smallest issue is daunting for an engineer without a political background; this includes most of those on a non-management track.