One upper management leader once mentioned that competitors (Cadence) were more efficient. A few colleagues who once worked at Cadence also said the same. Why? Have our leaders thought about the underlying reason, or they know the answer but they can't change since such reform will damage their own benefits?
6 replies (most recent on top)
My experience working at another competitor before joining Synopsys gives me a similar impression, but with more nuance. In my view, our productivity gap comes from two major issues from technical point of view.
# Weak software architecture discipline
Across several projects, I’ve seen architecture decisions that simply wouldn’t pass in a well‑run engineering organization.
## One major component relied heavily on outdated design patterns that felt more like Fortran-era practices than modern software engineering.
## Another large, multi‑year project had no functional or design specifications. For new engineers, the learning curve becomes unnecessarily steep, and knowledge transfer becomes almost impossible.
## Even worse, the people who created these architectural “black boxes” were later put in charge of new critical projects, allowing the same problems to repeat.
When architecture is weak, everything downstream becomes slower: onboarding, debugging, feature development, testing, and long‑term maintenance.
## Promotion paths that reward authority over technical excellence
It’s extremely common here for average developers to be promoted into management roles. Once they gain authority, many feel threatened by stronger engineers or innovative ideas. Instead of empowering technical talent, they suppress it.
This creates a culture where:
## technical leadership is undervalued,
## innovation is discouraged, and
## people with real engineering strength have limited influence on product direction.
Over time, this erodes both productivity and morale.
@aw you have my attention...
Lip-Bu Tan was as much a blessing for cadence as synopsys current leadership is a curse.
My 2 cents..
Cadences upper mgt is more knowledgeable about the real issues, many scientific, mathematical, technical, involved in making and using the tools (Devgan wrote a circuit simulator), and they are also willing to listen to the lower levels about what the real needs are. Cadence is more interested in the real issues than the politics and palace intrigue, have a longer timeline. They reward and care about the right things.
I remember productivity being a major topic in one of our all‑hands meetings a few years ago. Since then, I haven’t seen any meaningful actions taken to actually improve efficiency. These days, leadership has completely given up and is simply hoping that AI tokens will magically solve our problems.
I would say, the answer may not be politically correct.....