Pros
This is a bittersweet review. Had I written this a month ago, it would be a 5 star rating, and I would approve of pretty much every decision that has been made with regards to how the company is run. Since you, the reader, may be reading this wondering whether to pursue or accept a position at ARM I suggest you read this first before making the decision to do so. Let me discuss what ARM is at the time of writing. ARM is more than a successful technology company. It is a carefully cultivated and maintained engineering paradise. Not only do you work with some of the best engineers in the world on a day to day basis, but the company culture is something special. Employees here are not treated as human resources on a sheet, but rather you feel like you are being invested in by the company. The company trusts its employees to get the job done, and only hire the best to do so. You don't need to become a manager to progress up the company ladder. Engineers are venerated. There are so many different, amazing, divisions within ARM that you can potentially transfer to if you'd like, or at the very least get exposure to. We're looking into the future with things like servers, HPC and VR. If you're interested in games technology we have Enlighten in house. If you like image processing we'd just acquired Apical. If you like CPU design, or GPU design, or security, we've got that! You feel like the work that you do on a day to day basis touches millions of lives. This is one of the few technology companies that gives you a sense of being excited to stay and work at for the rest of your career. The salaries are great, but then again, Cambridge is hellishly expensive to live in. Stock options are good and get better with your position in the company hierarchy.
Cons
The only downside to date is that all of the above potentially means nothing now. I say potentially because it looks likely that SoftBank, a Japanese telecommunications giant which admittedly very few of us in ARM had ever heard of before, will be our new masters (check the news). Not just shareholders, no. We're selling the whole company. And for what? We've listened to the justifications put forth, and they did not inspire. They said that we're getting great premiums on our stock units. That's great, I guess. Let's hope they have some other new incentive to give us after the buy out. They said that we're going to need the investment. Why? ARM has market dominance that few companies will ever have. We have a licensing and royalty model that is bringing in tons of cash. We're hiring good people as fast as we can find them. They said that the SoftBank's vision for the future aligns with ARM's. For many things this may be true.. but let's be honest here. A Japanese telecommunications giant with an interest in robotics and IoT probably does not care about lighting technology for video games as much. Or VR, or GPUs.. or Imaging. It may take 5 years, or 10 years, but eventually things are going to diverge, tough times will appear, promises aren't going to be remembered, and lots of loyal staff are going to be left out in the cold. They'll say it was sad, and unfortunate, and they tried, but you were, "Just not core to the business." Perhaps I don't know all the details as I should, and perhaps there's more to this story. Perhaps. But it feels like a bad idea, and nothing any of us have heard from the CEO changes that opinion. It hasn't been sold well, and none of my colleagues want to be owned by a far away entity. We valued ARM's independence and liked working at the centre, and were proud to work for a British company. Now it feels as if we are doomed to be another appendage to an out of country corporation.
