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Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center

Is this your company?

do not believe the positive headlines - Director Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center Employee Review

1.0
12 Oct 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good benefits and decent salary. Free lunch and great facilities on campus - gym, sleep pods, arcade, EV charging. Great place to learn about traditional Asian business culture, bureaucracy, and micromanagement

Cons

Management team loves pedigree - they want folks from top companies and top schools, even though they don't have it themselves. They want overqualified people to do menial work. It's preferable if you are a VP who can make slides, or director who can take meeting notes. If you like being a glorified secretary on the business side or like "innovating" on a dead-end project on the technical side, then this is the place for you. Directions change all the time and not in a good way. Part of it is due to misalignment with Samsung mothership - other businesses make money, and we just burn it. Why would other company leadership care what we think and do? Most of it is due to poor management. Yes you have senior [in both age and seniority] Asian men leading the organization. But it doesn't mean they have any management skills other than being able to order people around. The best analogy is to think of a general yelling angrily at his troops to work harder, without specifying the purpose of the work, and then changing his mind a moment later and yelling at the same people for not being able to anticipate this change. A lot of mediocrity on the technical side - we're not exactly a premier tech employer by any means. Why would any engineer go to Samsung instead of Google or Apple? This place is where innovation fails to launch or gets sent to other Korean businesses to die. Too much politics on the business side. The people there are full of themselves. They greet each other warmly in the hallway and talk openly about collaboration, then proceed to stab each other in the back. Do your own homework into the track record of SSIC over the last 6 or 7 years, and the high turnover. Those who stick around for a long time are either Samsung lifers, people applying for green card, or those who can't go somewhere better.

Explore other reviews about Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center

5.0
9 Apr 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Although the internship was fully remote, they tried to make opportunities to communicate with full-time employees and other interns. They also provided all resources needed for the intern project, so there were no technical difficulties during the internship. Great company with tons of support and many interesting projects.

Cons

Some logistics were complicated to figure out. But I think this may be a problem for all big corporations.

1
2.0
21 May 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Samsung has great perks and benefits, and coworkers are usually very talented and smart.

Cons

Let me start by pointing out that most of the positive reviews have been either provided by interns or by employees all submitting reviews coincidentally in June 2019. This organization does not have any credibility with leadership in Korea HQ. This results in a lot of busy work and fire drills that ultimately do not have any impact to the company's overall strategy or growth. Over the years the various innovation efforts have all been "graduated" and transferred to other Samsung businesses and promptly shut down. Digital health, data center, autonomous driving... you name it, and it's been tried, and failed. When the previous head of the organization left at the end of 2020, he took with him all the remaining credibility and purpose that the organization had. They also bungled a round of layoffs which I was a part of, that was ill conceived and poorly executed. What leading company cuts a third of an organization in December? This was right before the Christmas holidays with 4 weeks notice and during the covid pandemic no less! The people who planned it obviously never had to look for a job over Xmas break and are clueless about how horrific the timing was.

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