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      First Solar

      Engaged employer

      First Solar Reviews

      3.7

      73% would recommend to a friend

      (681 total reviews)
      avatar

      Mark Widmar

      86% approve of CEO

      62% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      4.1

      Diversity and inclusion

      3.7

      Culture and values

      3.6

      Work/Life balance

      3.5

      Senior management

      3.5

      Compensation and benefits

      3.4

      Career opportunities

      First Solar has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 681 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The First Solar employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufacturing industry (3.5 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      681 reviews
      1.0
      28 Mar 2018

      Do not trap your self here

      Engineer
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Low work load No scientific/ fundamental understand needed. If you are someone who has no motivation and just want to take a paycheck home - THIS IS THE PLACE TO BE! Yes, company has money but only because of the first movers advantage. Advantage is fading rapidly.

      Cons

      Low pay - salary may look good at start but you won’t get much raises so it will soon become negative in a couple of years Thick/rife politics - you will only be promoted if you are ready to get a brown nose. (This goes from sr vp all the way to a low level manager) Merit doesn’t matter! Nickel and dime every thing , absolutely everything - most of the things are not even worth mentioning. Company is very short sighted, changes plans and direction every single day. The management calls it “being agile”... well, it’s clear the company have no vision. Very poor internal promotion structure - as mentioned, if you are not a “YES” man, you won’t do good here. I have worked here for 6 yrs and recently, a high level director with backbone left the company because the management wanted him to be spineless - company is loosing a lot of employees and has very high attrition rate because of management dishonesty (tell you one thing and do opposite) Unfortunately, I still work here because this area doesn’t have any jobs - I have kids who will soon be out of school and I will be out of this trap.. until then, I will have to just suck it up (lots of ppl here who do the same and have no motivation to work- their motivation has been killed by the level of management) Not an innovative work environment.

      avatar
      First Solar Response
      8y
      Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. I am very sorry to hear that you experience has not been meeting your expectations. We value your feedback and would appreciate the opportunity to further discuss and try to resolve your concerns. Please email jobs@firstsolar.com and we can set something up. Thank you.
      1.0
      15 Feb 2017

      Eyes wide open, not what it appears to be. The future is cloudy. Sinking ship.

      Development engineering technician iii
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Only pros were the people "on the floor" doing the work. Unappreciated workers doing the bulk of the work watched each others back.

      Cons

      Product suspect at best. Decisions made at high level costing livelihood of company. Once a good company to work for. Now appears to be chasing it's tail. No direction....Ship with out a rudder, and taking on water.

      2.0
      9 Dec 2016

      In just 6 months we've become a shell of our former selves

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Sometime in 2018, we should be okay again Benefits are good Dress Code is relaxed You'll get to work on cool projects regardless of associate "status".

      Cons

      I've survived 3 sizeable layoffs in 5 years. While the market is to blame for the 2017 IPC cliff not being a cliff, the Chinese dumping panels and SunEdison going under, the new C-suite of 2016 have made some really bad calls. We decided to do - and then not do 5 Series modules and the structures that would go with them. We decided to look into - and then not look into methods of DC collection. All told, that's a lot of cash. First Solar has decided to ride out the storm and accelerate the technology roadmap. While that's all very good on the top, if we're not directly involved with de-commissioning current equipment, R&D, or installing the next equipment and spec'ing it in (or the skeleton crew supporting those activities), we're not needed. If we're not actively involved in the EPC projects in the short term, we're not needed. It's been brutal. I can't recommend employment here until 6 Series modules are selling and shipping.

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      Glassdoor has 803 First Solar reviews submitted anonymously by First Solar employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if First Solar is right for you.