Cadence design systems: Well-Paid and Satisfied

The development arm of the EDA tools major is the second smallest company in this ranking. It entered the BES survey in 2002 at a surprising #2 and rose to #1 in 2003. This year has seen it fall to #4 largely on account of its relative fall on HR parameter rankings from #13 to #19. This was mainly because other companies improved their HR hygiene factors. The only continuing issue of concern at Cadence remains the relatively low tenure of its senior management. It also gave a relatively low average salary hike to its employees, but since it is in any case one of the highest paying companies in the survey, employee satisfaction on salaries remained the highest. 

In fact, Cadence continued to top most employee satisfaction scores and its employee parameter ranking remained at #1.

It remains the best on overall and composite satisfaction as well as satisfaction on salaries and appraisal systems. Culture remains a big strength with the company though some issues have cropped up here. 

However, the three significant concern areas that emerged this year were satisfaction on job content and growth (ranked 9th compared to last year at #1), Training, (ranked 8th over last year at #2) and People (ranked 6th over last year at #2).

Fewer employees strongly agreed with statements relating to excitement on work, technology they were working on and growth opportunities. For the kind of high-end work Cadence does, this is a surprising development and is probably reflective of fatigue setting in. On the people side, there were relatively low scores on key questions like, “regular and constructive feedback,” “immediate recognition for work well done,” and “sense of personal and professional accomplishment.” 

A result of all of this-more employees said they would leave the company for a 20% hike in salary, fewer said they would recommend the company to a friend or that they had fun working here. And that really is the key sense one gets at Cadence-satisfied but disengaged employees looking for newer challenges that the company is not yet able to provide.