Broadcom

Broadcom was a great place to work but the heart and soul that harbored such wonderful innovation, best-in-class technologies and hard work has been purged by Avago who took over in 2016. What remains are repetitive processes that are cheap and return profit with no regard for its employees. All operational functions were moved to Singapore and Malaysia. The headquarters is now out of San Jose. Avago/Broadcom continues to find new Companies to buy, gut out, eliminate automation and run everything cheap. Still if you are happy with a Company that knows how to make its stock holders happy and keep fooling the industry into thinking that Hock Tan is a genius because he cuts out all the fat (employees, innovation, automation) then this is the place for you! The stock has gone through the roof. The top C-suites keep making lots of money with these mergers and divestitures and the SEC is right there with them. So, some are doing very well while the employees who made Broadcom, LSI, Brocade, etc., successful are kicked out with no regard for the years of dedication that these people contributed towards. It will be interesting to see how long this can be sustained.

I left Broadcom more than 12 years ago, so I can’t say how it is now. When I first started working there, the culture was that a 12-hour day was 1/2 day’s worth of work. The CEO, Henry Nicholas would have meetings at midnight. The expectation was that the employee would do whatever it took to get the job done.

As it grew larger, it was more bound by regulations and paperwork requirements. The paperwork and security became more important than productivity.

The company is an Engineering company and engineers were the most highly regarded. The rest of the people weren’t so important.

While there were women managers, there was no-one in a high-level position.

Again, I have to stress that my information is very outdated and may no longer be true.

As a woman engineer in Broadcom Israel I don’t feel any discrimination neither as a wide policy nor in lower local levels. I believe I’m given the same opportunities and compensation as male engineers. However, I believe this is mainly related to the direct management that can change inside each organization.