After reading many reviews, it is apparent that experiences are quite varied in the company. Here are the cons with platform development (board-level design):
1. No work-life balance for multiple reasons. (a)management will overload newer employees and allow Sr. Staff members to add to it. (b)Marketing will cancel projects after you have put in insane hours and then increase the quantity of SKUs without changing the deadlines = More work expected in half the time. No, your manager will not push back on your behalf.
2. Technical decisions are made by people who don't know. Marketing wants something based on cost and an apples-oranges comparison with the competition, then it's up to the engineer to make it happen. And no, the laws of physics are not considered an acceptable reason to why it can't be done.
3. Career growth opportunities are extremely limited. Those that exist are not given to the achievers, but rather the boss' friends.
4. POLITICS has killed Engineering! (a) Much of the hardware work is being shipped to China so everyone in platform is struggling to prove their value to the company; even if it means being treated like a doormat. (b) Senior Staff Engineers who have been promoted above their ability compensate by off-loading doomed-to-fail work and then pointing fingers when things don't work out. When a junior engineer succeeds, the senior guy will manage to pass off the success as his own. (c) You can never have an engineering discussion. Any purely technical conversation is killed because it is above the heads of many (including the senior guys). Mathematical explanations are disregarded unless you have experimental proof. The experimental evidence may be physically impossible to obtain for any number of reasons, but that just means you are wrong. (d) The word "ownership" plagues the department to the point where it no longer has meaning. You may "own" a design, but 3 of your colleagues have dictated what components you are to use, the PCB layer count, and thermal conditions so you have no room to design anything. Your ownership has been reduced to schematic entry, and technician level testing.
5. Poor management. Related to the point on politics, many managers are not qualified to lead their teams. They are not as knowledgeable as their reports. The manager-employee relationship turns into a struggle and the employee will always lose with a disproportionate workload, no work-life balance, and poor performance reviews regardless of any significant contributions made to the company.
