Samsung Information Systems America Reviews

I have been working at Samsung Information Systems America as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Great salary, great people, awesome environment.

Cons – Heavy workload, very corporate structure.

Advice to Senior Management – Be flexible. Great idea comes from environment that encourages creativity.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Samsung Information Systems America full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – You can learn Korean by sitting in Meetings :-) (which are plenty BTW)

Cons – Zero Career growth
Zero Recognition
Micro management

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Samsung Information Systems America as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Interesting project, good pay, good food at a cheap price

Cons – less flexible, has kind of dress code

Advice to Senior Management – it does not hurt to be a little more flexible.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Samsung Information Systems America full-time for less than a year

Pros – SISA (and Samsung more generally) is known more for industrial design than great software and user experiences. But Samsung has realized they need to offer more compelling user interfaces and user experiences, and they're working hard to grow their capabilities in those areas. While SISA is not yet a top-notch research and innovation lab, the derivative is in the right direction. They're hiring good people, and they're challenging them to do great work. Because Samsung sells a wide variety of products there are lots of opportunities for real impact.

Cons – Because SISA is still growing and trying to improve, it does suffer from some growing pains. The biggest is that while upper management in Korea generally realizes that Samsung as a whole needs to improve its processes and practices and looks to SISA to help lead those changes (since it's in Silicon Valley), those lower down in Korea often don't see as much urgency in transforming their practices. As a result, sometimes driving change requires a bit of patience and understanding.

Advice to Senior Management – Help pushing on counterparts in Korea to drive improvements in processes and practices.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Samsung Information Systems America full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Medical benefits, business travels, and not much else really

Cons – The following are the negative aspects that are commonly experienced when working at Samsung:

• Korean management, who were sent to the U.S. from Samsung Corp. in Korea, makes all of the decisions.
• Non-Korean managers and employees are put in place to keep up an "American" appearance.
• Management will favor ethnically and culturally Korean employees.
• Culturally Korean employees will have work-related conversations in Korean in front of non-Korean co-workers.
• Majority of managers are severely incompetent and have very little skill or expertise.
• Working style emulates the military (probably Korean military).
• At Samsung, female workers are second class citizens who need to feign traditional, submissive roles. Sometimes, they literally walk behind the male employees, especially if they are culturally Korean.
• Employees work very hard to "compete" by analyzing competitor's products & features.
• Compensation will be below par when compared to competing companies, unless you were an A level employee at the competing company, i.e. A, F, G, & N, who Samsung would like to poach in the area.

If you are currently working for one of the top tier companies, please be well advised and make a better choice for your career.

Advice to Senior Management – Please happily march along while Samsung declines worldwide.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Samsung Information Systems America full-time for less than a year

Pros – Samsung in general is a fast copy machine. They have been able to achieve success in each and every field they have entered into.

Cons – Highly political place. Quality holds no meaning. Teams are rewarded for shipping. HQ (Suwon) wants to control everything and screwup everything you do. Your ideas will easily be stolen by others and credit taken by them. Koreans experts at playing dirty politics

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Samsung Information Systems America full-time

Pros – Competitive pay, job security (no lay off), subsidize lunch

Cons – Poor benefits, no stock options, little vacation, poor management, demoralizing environment, big egos, terrible infrastructure (poor IT support, ineffective internal processes etc.)

If you’re a talented designer, or a designer with any integrity, Samsung’s UX Center is not for you, unless you join the right lab. Some UX labs have deceiving titles, where "innovation" is completely overrated. Lab director (or Manager) is incompetent, with absolutely no idea how to run an effective UX team. Full blown office politics, where people fight a lot to get attention. There is no collaboration within even a small team, and the manager is too incompetent to resolve any conflicts. The management level is eager to please our Korea HQ, but constantly fails to convince. The only thing this lab director cares about is the number of patents filed, so he can look good and receive his year-end bonus.

Full-blown favoritism is in constant display. Some Sr. level designers don’t even have any design background, nor do they design anything. But the management will always protect them while other team members are sacrificed instead.

Designers are treated like tools within the lab, even when they are the most pivotal role in the design lab. Here are some tips I learned to survive in Samsung’s UXC: 1. Please your manager, do not challenge them. 2. Always remember your manager can be a jealous animal (who'll be threatened if you outshine them in front of other VPs from HQ or the Center) 3. Forget about HR, they’re utterly useless and will never be on your side 4. Learn how to deal with big egos 5. Learn how to be happy in an extremely demotivating environment.

Advice to Senior Management – Make effective decisions, even if it means taking out certain toxic employees who are detrimental to the operations of the entire team. Bring in a motivating and humble UX leader who understands design and turn this around. Give all employees a voice and listen to them. Allow employees to give performance reviews to their managers. STEP UP and value your designers so the UX lab can be truly "innovative".

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Samsung Information Systems America as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – This was a great opportunity to get to know overall market and technology trend that are going on currently. Also, experienced senior colleagues were helpful in helping me out to learn skills.

Cons – I worked as a contractor so I did not receive any compensation packages, healthcare benefits, or paid vacation.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Samsung Information Systems America

Pros – Interesting topics (if you look for them), but opportunity to "shine" is limited due to the management philosophy.
Samsung name will open doors when working with partners.
Broad spectrum of technologies and markets to potentially work on.

Cons – Near zero empowerment - only goal is to please HQ no matter what
"Dispatch" managers from HQ run the place just like it was Korea
Poor communication w/ Korea HQ makes it difficult to make progress
Local office is managed in Korean style - can be shocking/harsh to US workers

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Samsung Information Systems America

Pros – you get to work with new technology development. you will meet other start-up companies pitching ideas to you, but Korea will tell you to court relationships and then not follow through. beware of your personal reputation as a samsung employee

Cons – all power lies in Korea where they have little understanding of consumers outside of korea. very little work life balance. they work you to death and it's generally considered "the way it is"

Advice to Senior Management – place more value and trust into your employees