Vantaggi
The legacy of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard is alive and well within Agilent Technologies (which spun off from HP in 2000). Our products are best in class across the life sciences and electronics industries from DNA microarrays to network analyzers. In general, employees demonstrate a high level of innovation and focus on building quality products. The working environment is comfortable if you don't mind the cubicles. Compensation and benefits are generous. I would highly recommend Agilent Technologies as a place to work if you can manage to land a job offer and you're interested in the test and measurement industry.
Svantaggi
Since the telecom bust in 2001, Agilent has been focused on keeping the company lean and profitable. As a result of this, hiring in the U.S. has been very limited even though we are growing headcount rapidly in Asia. The prospects of low growth within the U.S. has diminished morale somewhat and raised concerns about an aging domestic workforce. One of the less exciting aspects of working for a large company is that there are quite a few legacy products that are still in support mode and require some degree of attention even though most everyone would probably prefer to be working on new technology.