Reviews van Cadence Design Systems

My experience with Cadence Belgium, formerly NUMECA, has been extremely disappointing. When Cadence acquired NUMECA, employees were told that the acquisition would bring development, investment, and new opportunities. In reality, after further acquisitions such as Pointwise, BETA/ANSA-related activities, and other integrations, the atmosphere changed significantly. The focus gradually shifted from engineering excellence and long-term product development to cost optimization, restructuring, and internal politics. Developers and technical people who had worked for the company for 5, 10, or more years were pushed out, sometimes with very little consideration for their personal situation, including people with several children and families depending on a single income. What made this even harder to accept was the impression that technical contribution was not the main criterion for who stayed. In my view, the company increasingly favored people who were loyal to management, good at meetings, presentations, and corporate language, but far from real software development and real product work. Cadence Belgium inherited strong and advanced CFD technology from NUMECA, but over the last five years, in my opinion, poor and unprofessional management has seriously damaged both the products and the engineering culture. Instead of protecting and developing the expertise that made NUMECA valuable, management allowed it to be diluted, demotivated, and in many cases lost. The internal “Best Place to Work” narrative felt completely disconnected from reality. Employee surveys showed, as far as I understood, very high dissatisfaction, lack of trust in management, and poor morale. Yet the company still presented itself externally as a great workplace or even an award-winning environment. For many employees, this looked like corporate theatre rather than honest self-reflection. Overall, I would describe Cadence Belgium as a deeply unpleasant environment for serious engineers who care about real product development. There is too much politics, too much management theatre, too many meetings, and too little respect for the people who actually build the technology.