Pros
-$500 yearly fitness reimbursement -Convenient location in Sunnyvale -When it comes down to it, this is as pure of a science company as you can get. Remember learning about FTIR and DSC in organic chem? EAG surely does them, pure and simple, in real world fashion! -Company has an extensive portfolio of equipment and techniques; there is not a shortage of opportunity to apply materials science. Unfortunately, it is very hard to move within the company once you've latched onto a role and or interface with old guard management. -There is a wide customer base, so when economic downturns occur, there will at least be some business. Moreover, it is always interesting to see new customers trying novel things via materials characterization, etc. -The company rewards employees for going the extra mile by giving 'We Know How' awards. These are great for morale, as they encourage teamwork and public acknowledgement of hard work. Work/life balance was more like life balance, as most of the time, there was little to no work to be done. It was like a Marxist existence. Herein lies one of the fallacies of EAG's siloed nature--some people are plagued with 50+ hour work weeks, while others have the time to play chess, stare at the sky, micromanage, or do whatever. I was able to capitalize on the excellent work/life balance by having ample time to focus on my fitness and attained some of the best physical conditioning of my life during the process. Labor is divided so much that on some days, there was only 45 minutes of tangible work (if you have professional aspirations, this great WLB might not be too great). Bringing up this challenge with management only results in "...this is the job, everyone else does the same thing." On another note, EAG has a long-standing reputation within the tech community as being the go to place for analysis. Most customers view competitors with a jaundice eye, knowing that those competitors have lots of work to do before they can match EAG's prowess in the technical arena! Little does this have to do with worker satisfaction, however. One is apt to meet humble coworkers at EAG who are willing to help out in any way they can. Again, people matter and most people here will have your best interests in mind, not wanting to cause friction.
Cons
*Alienation: alienation describes the separation and estrangement of people from their work, their wider world, their human nature, and their selves. **If you are in Inside Sales, you may very well never sell anything and just be used as a human quasi-robot for years because automation is too far down the pipeline, or so it is said. Despite this, you are still required to complete sales training and hoard the useless knowledge. Good luck to you. While this 'Cons' section is not intended as pure slander and is meant to be constructive, there are facets of EAG that are completely messed up. The executives say "...we are a PREMIUM brand," yet by no means does this suggest that EAG is a PREMIUM place to work! As seen above, it is almost automatic that one will become alienated by the work that they do, depending on the role. Management just encourages "focus on the tasks, nothing else," which consists of clicking the same buttons over and over and over again, every day. There is a limit to how much of an incentive money can be, and I wholeheartedly agree with a past review titled 'Grind Away Sanity,' in that ambitious people are used simply as push button mechanical operators. Due to the lack of emphasis on how the work impacts the greater society (i.e. how the technical data is actually used to solve a customer's problems), EAG feels much like a high tech drive thru restaurant; "welcome to EAG, may I take your order?" would be frowned upon, but is actually outstandingly accurate to what the job entails. The company has great webinars on techniques and how they are recruited in the industry, however. More weight should be placed on employees learning from the webinars, and if a group only focuses on one technique, managers should still emphasize cross training. At the end of the day, the only things highlighted at this place are the quote volumes, revenue generated, and comparison to previous months. There is no 'meat' so to speak in terms of worker satisfaction if you're stuck in a dead-end, monotonous role. Be wary of what you are told, as half-truths may exist. When trying to retain someone, a senior leader said once that they would unequivocally "never leave the company," only to say that they have wanted to leave multiple times, upon trying to council somebody out. Team morale can easily decline when management only says "this job is what it is," and worse yet, when a senior leader said in writing "I don't trust anybody," basically telling the whole team that they don't matter. The amount of tribal knowledge existing is quite appalling--the person analyzing the samples typically knows more about the pricing structure than the person quoting because things are not ironed out on paper. Without needing to digress, EAG has the potential to be a lot better, given the caliber of the people there. It is an incredibly siloed company, so one person's opinion may very well be completely different than what is written here. The executives, while trying their best to be personable, tend to drift off into black holes, leading to worker estrangement. There are folks who may never leave EAG because it is comfortable for them, and that's fine. However, they might be riding a 'gravy train,' and they may not be stimulated professionally. If you do not care much to challenge your brain, try your luck with EAG. You might get lucky and have very little work, but when that cycle repeats indefinitely, tell us how professionally satisfied you are and where you think your career is going. As noted above, this review is indicative of one idiosyncratic experience; there may very well be invigorating roles within the company, but due to the silos and management only wanting to protect their territory, they might as well not even exist. Workers will continue to be lost in this vicious cycle. This is worker alienation at its finest.
