Pros
The work is fun and challenging and many of the employees are bright and pleasant to work with. The atmosphere is generally very collegial. Work life balance is good most of the time. Some engineering managers have demoralized their teams with repeated requests for weekend work even as project schedules kept or exceeded pace. But that's not common. Overall the technical work at Cadence is very satisfying.
Kontras
Upper management lacks vision. High-level technical decisions are sometimes guided more by internal politics than technical merit. Cadence has killed seemingly successful forward-looking projects in favor of stale legacy projects, often without technical justification or announcement. Business is always a factor, sure, but lack of boldness and risk now may leave Cadence eating dust a few years down the road.