Pros
Interesting and diverse customer base Interesting and diverse product portfolio
Kontras
Business decisions are all gross margin driven. No consideration for existing customers (only future customers). Employee treatment is way down on the priority list – near the bottom. This is a very short term mentality. Sales are flat to down, and company barely produces a profit (or loses money) on $500M in sales. Let those numbers speak for themselves. When I started there, company was laying off. When I left, company was laying off. There is no security there. As a new hire – you are the minority against the established workers, whose number 1 priority is to keep their job – so terrible work environment. Politics is some of the worst I’ve seen, with managers often providing zero support to their team members, in order to have someone to blame/fire when things go wrong. And go wrong they do – because the company’s focus is on Sales, not engineering, manufacturing or service. The operations is a cluster, with problems so deep, as you peel back the onion, the problems just get deeper and bigger! HR has zero power, and is a sycophant to the executive team. Pay is well below average for semiconductor equipment, except in Sales. Company focus is Sales. All other departments are 3rd class citizens (engineering, manufacturing, service, etc.). When I starting working at Brooks, I would interface with other people/companies, and I met a lot of former Brooks employees. I mean many, many former employees. That’s because the turnover rate the last 10+ years is very, very high. Check LinkedIn.com for ex Brooks employees and you’ll understand what I am referring to. I have many friends at the top equipment companies ($3B in sales and up) - and Brook’s bad reputation is not only well known, but during some interviews I had, they actually stated they will never do business with Brooks again. Stay away from Brooks, employee job satisfaction is at an industry low, for valid reasons!
