Cascade Microtech Reviews

I worked at Cascade Microtech full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Worker bees are friendly and strive to do the right thing. Being in Beaverton means not having to drive in downtown Portland traffic.

Cons – Management is clueless. The preverbal left and right hands don't know what the other is doing. Decisions are made without all the right information. Management doesn't listen to their employees. No raises in over nine years. Not everyone is treated the same. You see serious favoritism.

Advice to Senior Management – Start listening to your employees. They are the ones that are doing the work.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Cascade Microtech full-time for more than a year

Pros – Challenging - if you like it. I did to some extend. I held as long as I though it was worth it, learned a lot.

Cons – Very challenging due to old accounting system and old philosophy. Improvements were literally not possible due to a single employee bully. A lot of re-work, no SWIs, no support/communication from other departments. I hear that employee is still there so more of the same?

Advice to Senior Management – think kaizen, people. it's time.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Cascade Microtech full-time

Pros – Lower level employees are talented people who work hard to make the company successful. Work life balance is good, which sort of make up for the poor pay rate and benefits.

Cons – Most positions at the company are dead end jobs. There are not really any opportunities for growth or advancement. There are a number of very talented and capable individuals that have been with the company for years doing basically the same thing and not advancing at all. The management is clueless and not supportive of those who do the real work. So many processes and systems used by the company are right out of the 80's. Every time the management makes the bad decisions which result in poor market performance, they lay off a bunch of employees to make up for it.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop the constant restructuring nonsense, and pick a direction to move forward. You have great employees. Value them, and stop treating them like they are disposable.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Cascade Microtech

Pros – This is a little company on the way up. There is so much to do to help it grow that it is easy to have a big impact. I am also learning new things every day. The people are wonderful. There are no politics and there is a high level of trust.

Cons – If you want a company with really well defined processes and a lot of structure, this isn't the place for you.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Cascade Microtech

Pros – The employees are generally very 'team' oriented without some of the cut throat type of behavior at some bigger companies like Intel. Management really attempts to treat the people in their groups fairly and respectfully.

Cons – Due to the present economic 'realities', pay has really not kept up to pace with where they should be relative to similar positions within the industry.

Advice to Senior Management – If Cascade wants to hang on to their most valuable people, management needs to seriously consider paying them fairly for the value that they bring to the company. Some very valuable people have already left to go work for companies that better compensate for their skills and talents. Also, the review process and the rewards (pay increases) that come from the review process needs to be consistently applied. I recieved an excellent review (in the high 80's percentile) and did not recieve a raise in pay where others did recieve a raise simply because they had not gotten one in a long time.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Cascade Microtech

Pros – Having a source of income is a good thing.

Cons – Living on unemployment income is way more favorable than this working for this company. Medical benefits were reduced year after year. Management is incompetent and unfair. At one point we were promised profit sharing but it never panned out. Everything is about bottom line. Sure, Cascade has a lot of cash and has faired pretty well during tech downturn but they wouldn't dare think of using any of it to make employees happy.

Advice to Senior Management – Retain and keep the good managers. Don't fire them. Re-think the current management.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Cascade Microtech

Pros – These days any work is good to have. That is just about the most positive thing to say about this company.

Cons – Management is incompetent on many different levels, pay is far lower than industry standards, many benefits including school reimbursement and 401k have been removed and show no signs of coming back. Even through a recession you would think a company would at least appear to attempt to hold on to the people that hold the company afloat, but not this one. No one is happy and it really shows. Threatening to quit is the only way to get a raise or promotion. This is one of those companies that you will never hear anyone say anything positive about.

Advice to Senior Management – At least try to look like you care about people who work hard, and communicate with people on different levels, other than biased and often completely incompetent supervisors.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Cascade Microtech

Pros – In this economy, any job is good and there still is a good balance between work and home. There are some good people left that are helpful, however the really good people that have been with the company are leaving. If you are good at kissing up and not working you can actually go far in this company.

Cons – Pay is not competitive, insurance benefits have become miniscule. I completely disagree with previous posting about the HR being good - that is laughable. Good ol boy culture is prevalent, as is a CYA mentality.

Advice to Senior Management – If you want to build the best product, you should stop out-sourcing. If you are looking to sell the company or division you better hurry up.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Cascade Microtech

Pros – The people are great and lower management really seems to care about their employees. Having a life is acceptable, and the environment is also a concern. The company regularly helps contribute to charity events with time and money and encourages employees to be a benefit to the community. The HR department is also great. The HR director is really trying but he's got a hard situation to handle.

Cons – You never know if you are going to be laid off and whether the company is doing well or not. It's not OK when you have no idea how things are going.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't lay people off without warning and let people know who left (gossip is a bad way to let people know what's going on). Let people know how the company is doing between quarters. The new CEO is doing better, though.