Pros
Interesting and challenging work, absolutely never a dull moment. Some co-workers are absolutely brilliant. Relatively stable employment, for the industry. They run lean so they don't need to lay off as much during the downturns. Given the state of technology, the company isn't going anywhere. (Hard to explain this to others who aren't familiar with the industry). Opportunities for travel exist. You really feel like you are contributing to something every day you come to work, and the management team does a fairly good job on disseminating the big company news so everyone knows which projects are important to which customers. They profit share. 'Nuff said.
Cons
As others have commented, work life balance is atrocious. At my orientation, one of the presenters said "what are your hobbies that you like to dream about being able to do?" He was only half kidding. That was ok when it led to promotions. Since the merger a few years ago, it's gotten VERY bureaucratic. The company almost doubled in size overnight. Lam used to be about getting the job done right now and nobody cared how, but they've hired a legion of bean-counters to count minutes and pennies and it's mostly destroyed the culture of day-to-day innovation that existed when I was hired. Nowadays you spend more time defending yourself from petty political infighting and audits than on any actual projects. The group I work in has changed out every single person but me, and the general knowledge about how things actually work has gone down with every single person that left. The new people are half trained and then unleashed on unsuspecting coworkers. There's a blatant tier system. They have slides that show up about how they retain "> 80% of high-potential employees". What that means is that if someone has a PhD they throw money at them to keep them. There are literally entry level (Shakespearean-keyboard monkey, not kidding) jobs that they will not hire anyone without a doctorate into. For anyone without one, don't bother, you'll always be a second or third class citizen, no matter how much experience or value you bring in. Spending 8 years in a research lab on a campus to earn a thesis or spending 8 years in a research lab (or production fab) at a business to earn a paycheck shouldn't be all that different in terms of compensation or advancement, but that's how it is. They get around having to ramp up with the industry by hiring contractors for years, just so that they can get around paying for severance/unemployment or having to claim layoffs to finance when the inevitable downturn comes. It's unethical to the contractors who work side by side doing the same exact work as the full time employees. And it's inefficient because every year the contractors will leave as they realize they are never getting hired and seek greener pastures elsewhere. That leaves a double whammy on the full timers who have to pick up the load and simultaneously train new people. Management has been escalated to the highest levels over maintaining a sustainable workforce; all pleas for relief have fallen on apathetic ears. The lean layout of the company means that you are more likely to keep your job during the bad times, but you won't see the sun during the good times, due to you doing the job of three people and getting paid for one. They are a multi-billion dollar company that grossly underpays anyone below a mid-level manager. They quote that their compensation is "60% of the industry average"; what they fail to disclose is that a chunk of their management skews that up significantly and that a large chunk (~50%) of their employees are located in one of the highest cost of living areas in the country (HQ), so you can barely afford a shack in the area on what they pay. They also don't mention that they want the top 90% employees at a bargain 60% price, and they aren't afraid of enforcing that standard. Goal setting is usually an exercise in hilarity, at every level of the company. They start with ludicrous numbers and timelines, and we scream until they lower them to only impossible ones. They call them "stretch" goals; the idea is that you realistically will only succeed at 80% of them during an evaluation period. Which would be fine except for how they treat failure. (Which is absolutely ironic because of the slide show printed on main screens for months about "how to kill innovation - step 1: punish people severely for failure") When junior personnel miss a goal, they get pulled into a meeting room and practically read their rights on how the company is paying top dollar for top employees and basically shape up or the next pink slip will have your name on it. Mid and senior level employees don't even get that, they just go away and you find out about it the next day in a meeting. I would not recommend today's company to a friend.