Employees are extremely valuable corporate resources and, as such, should be treated with respect and trust. As an employee, you will be empowered to make commitments for the company. The corollary of this idea is: If we can't trust someone, then we need to get rid of them.
Just because we're a small company does not mean we are in any danger of disappearing. Over the 35 years that we have been in business, we have enjoyed steady average revenue growth, and have created substantial cash reserves. For this reason, we don't believe in layoffs as a standard management tool, nor have we ever had one in ASTi's history.
We have a pretty flat organization and few titles. If you want to call yourself "Senior Technical Staff Engineer" on your business card, go ahead. But it's what your colleagues think of you that really matters.
No more looking for the right forms to fill out, or waiting for your requests to be processed. If you need something, go ask the person you need it from.
We don't encourage the same "number-crunching" that many corporations practice. It is not your job to micromanage a project or to reduce the intermediate costs of our product.
Our engineers are some of the best around. (Really!)
You will get a lot of chances to learn different things. You will be exposed to a lot of aspects of the business besides pure engineering. Your career is your business; we offer you chances to develop and improve, but it is by using your own initiative that you make use of such opportunities.
We never fire people for mistakes. Mistakes are authorized. However, not learning from your mistakes is seen as either laziness or indifference.
We have a very high employee retention rate. If someone leaves, it is usually because of "other" reasons, such as their spouse wanting to go back to Wisconsin.
We expect you to work, but we do not expect you to work more than 40 hours in a typical workweek.
We do not have "salesmen". Our application engineers and the product itself are our marketing department. We rely on the excellence of our product and support to win contracts.