Mental trauma at SIG engineer - Engineer Lam Research Employee Review

1.0
Mar 28, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

No pros of working at SIG. Better off with Etch or Dep(oregon)

Cons

This review is only for SIG - i had very good experience when i collaborated with Etch and Dep groups. I started as a mid level engineer in SIG hardware engineering. Toxicity is rampant. you will be paid peanuts. This group simply does not want to collaborate with other groups - not only any new ideas you bring in will be trampled and you would be discouraged from giving your inputs or opinion. The direction is based on whims and fancies of 2 Sr Directors - 1 from Process and 1 from engineering. The expectation is that you would have to simply nod and be yes-man to everything. You would be told day in and day out how lucky you are to be a part of this organization, that you dont bring in any value, that you are getting paid to learn - never understood this last bit - why hire if you want to pay someone with the assumption that you are providing wages for them to learn ?. The group sits on 3-4 legacy tools and everyday job is to break something and pretend to fix it for 4-5 months till people forget that problem arose in the first place. You would have to be in constant fear of reprimand or mood swings of the Directors. No visibility whatsoever. 14 people quit in 2 years in this group - no one including HR cared as to why there was such a big turnover rate. Any attempt to go above and beyond your job responsibilities and learn about the semiconductor tool would be discouraged. You would have to forget any basic hardware knowledge and say yes to any vivid imagination that the Directors have about how the semicondcutor tool is functioning and then conduct lots of tests and collect data and present what their idea of problem statement and hypothesis is and the solution that they would have come up with based on their imagination of the problem statement. Any attempt to solve the problem in an efficient and elegant using theory backed solution would be immediately termed " short cut". Any tests that is conducted on tool showing that their vivid imagination is wrong will be criticized saying that the engineer does not have the right understanding or "it cannot be" ! I was astounded and quit pretty much immediately.

Explore other reviews about Lam Research

5.0
Jun 18, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great place to work. Would recommend!

Cons

A high pressure environment but worth it.

2.0
Apr 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good pay with decent benefits.

Cons

Highly toxic in certain (not all) business units. Directors and above held to far lower standards than employees. I received a lot of abuse from my manager and when I reacted, she used it against me over the course of five years, resulting in my launching an ER investigation upon which resulted in my termination. (They weren't even adult enough to tell me I was being fired; I found out by accident when I received a termination paycheck). Would love to recommend, but would never recommend Lam based on the treatment I got from my entire leadership chain over a five year period. PS, pretty sure retaliation of this nature is against the law; looking into it.

3
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