Career all petered out? Come to Tek! - Hardware Design Engineer III Tektronix Employee Review

2.0
23 Apr 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

On the plus side Tek has a nice campus, with a new exercise building and turf soccer field. If you're into mass transit there's a light rail stop on the south end of the campus which is darn handy. The are is relatively cheap to live in compared to other engineering hot spots (Seattle, Bay Area, LA, etc). The work force is fairly aged, so if you are old you fit in, and if you're young you'll have an easy time looking like a shining star for merely suggesting we catch up with the 90's.

Cons

Plain and simple the management at Tek is incompetent. Schedule trumps all. Even if management failed to provide the tools, resources for prototyping, or prioritization to work on a new design, the schedule is brutally used to beat the offending engineer or program manager to a pulp. So you get stuck in an endless loop of having to support various products in manufacturing, not having enough time to design the next one right, and then being stuck in manufacturing supporting the pig (and the pigs of those who have left in disgust). Available tools are sad and pathetic. For an engineering company trying to get into RF/microwave there are only 6 total seats of design software, 4 of which are in industry trailing Ansoft Designer, pathetic. Expect requests for new tools to take ages to eventually get shot down after heart breaking round after round of answering justification requests from the bean counters in management who have no clue about their industry (but their MBA trumps ignorance) Board design is focused on manufacturability above all else. So good luck getting a ground via within a useable distance of your bypass cap. The work environment is dreary. The remaining employees lack any real enthusiasm for life, and prefer the lights dimmed, the carpets dark, and their neighbors silent.

Explore other reviews about Tektronix

5.0
14 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very supportive and proactive approach

Cons

Honestly none top to bottom great company

4.0
19 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Culture Team Collaboration Most Benefits

Cons

Could use more investments in the workplace (outdated with deferred maintenance). Recent history of under-investing in New Products. This is changing, but well behind competitors. Extreme expense management for a consistent amount of time leads to a noticeable drop in innovation and innovative spirit.

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