I heard many advice before I started working with Intel that it was a very big ship that takes a very long time to change it’s course. Indeed… Intel is a large company that focuses more on keeping their people placated with cool things while being puzzled why the quality of the output is poor. Intel’s absolute embrace of globalization causes a lot of problems for teams that have to work with multiple time zones – this makes your day very long, you start early, finish late, never stop working as sun never sets on Intel.
Right now, Intel is in a panic mode. Intel is struggling to stay relevant as we mostly missed the mobile wave (relatively speaking). All of my experience is in one of their mobile departments where teams are working extremely hard to compete in the mobile arena. So much effort, yet, the only Intel‘s department that is making money is the server group. I've worked on some relatively solid projects, I’ve see many bad projects as well.
When it comes to management, they are always sleazy, Intel is no different here. They do not responsibility for issues that arise that they could have prevented, and often expect you to be read their mind (poor communication, expectations not set properly)…
Be ready to sit in many pointless meetings that consist mainly of management stuff. Managers will talk about constant reorganization, the latest goals, senior folks leaving or being promoted, etc. All of this will be of no relevance for you. You need to learn to look forward to that daily email of encouragement from the CEO or some other retarded senior executive talking about how the future of Intel stellar.
Should you even think about transferring groups, be ready – you will be ignored or even berated. Intel is all about putting execs first, then shareholders, then customers and employees last – NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOU AND YOU WILL BE LAID OFF BY INTEL IF NEEDED. Things run the most smooth when a person is in peace with the role/position, does work and goes home. Do not be fooled, any pro-activity and free/critical thinking will be squashed…
For me personally, the best part of the job is when I have no work to do and very little chance for any interruption. At that point, I dive in and spend time bettering myself by learning something useful and new. On the other hand, the hardest part of my job at Intel is when actual work comes and I know that pretty much all efforts are wasted because, either the technology makes no sense or the project is going to be canned and shuffled onto the next mobile device attempt.
Food: Intel’s cafeterias are run by independent third party vendor companies who seem to delight in shafting Intel employees with high prices and utterly small portions. Why would a company house a for-profit company on it’s premises at the expense of its own employees? Also, the vending machine prices are about 200% what they should be, it’s crazy – who comes with these prices, I am sure someone is bribed here otherwise no sane person would allow vendors to act in this fashion.
Work Space: You will get an ultra-small 3x6 cube surrounded by some noisy people. I’d recommend you buy some noise canceling headphones, it will be noisy at Intel. How people do work here is a puzzle to me. If you come in early you may be lucky as many people do not start before 10am.
The yearly review at Intel is bad – simply put it sucks big time. You need to brush up on business speak, read some consulting crap, pick up phrases, buzz-words. You will need it. Employees are ranked, this means each person is compared with peer and put in some kind of rank. This helps with layoffs, if you have low rank you’ll likely get cut.
Finally, on layoffs – we lay off people all the time. We close factories, we kill departments, we outsource functions, etc. You cannot escape it and there is nothing you can do about it – just make sure you do what you are asked to do and hope Intel still needs your group or skill-set.