12 years served (2000-2012). Got steered towards a VSP (nothing voluntary) back in 2012. Had taken my sabbatical year before that, and upon return, found a changed world. Had a lousy last year (2012). Foolishly pursued an HR Open door (zero value). Went through the 'why me' phase, but recognized that unlike 3-4 rounds earlier (SSG, LAD, PCCG), this time was different. Took VSP. Wept when some great managers got hit in the 1,000 manager purge of 2006
Got, 12 weeks pay for 12 years, plus a couple of checks kept coming in 2013. Try explaining that to the IRS. Moved to the Bay Area (got a job offer right after Christmas, with a OEM that takes the Intel reference design, and cranks out the feature rich product within 3-months). Have changed a couple of companies but even with smaller companies, there is simply greater freedom. At least you won't spend close to a year dreading your departure, or trying to make sense of a mid-year BE from 2 years back and other crazy rules.
Let's face it, after Grove, it's been downhill, ever so slowly. And yes, there is a lot of hate directed towards H1Bs - but let me tell you - coming on H1B, or even joining Intel as a RCG is not that great a deal. It is 'indentured servitude'. What does happen is like Cisco, Intel too got into empire building, gave hiring authority to undeserved folks, and they went and bred more reports.
I was shocked to see the kind of mediocre universities that show up in the drop downs at JOLI. Similar to someone coming from a Community College in Sheridan, WY landing here. The visa officer asked me 'can you explain what a history command is ?' and I started laughing before walking him through that in Unix, Novell and Windows. So before you hate, think about the times when there were cuts, and you discussed those folks while grabbing your free banana, and felt smug and a survivor. All those pointless World Cup soccer matches and paint schemes and curved edge business cards and logo changes.
Pretty soon it will be IDF, and the honchos will charge in pumped on the stage and their flunkies will tout 'we are a leaner Intel' and the wheel will turn again. Still have a 4 BR in Hillsboro, which pays a great rent, so if you are not in the Gold rush, you can still 'mine the miners'.
Intel has a huge challenge on it's hand, and if it was not Murthy or someone else, the result, be it Pat, or Rene or anyone (white/asian/black - it does not matter).
So take the package, see if you can ramp on Coursera/Udemy and show you are current - because believe me, people will simply not see value in an intel experience running > 5 years. I could easily take a developing domain (IoT, Hybrid Cloud, Hadoop), and say 'yes, at Intel we were looking into it ...' and then put the pieces together.
The world respects, even fears our critical approach, and values the time we spent here. But just like your favorite college t-shirt, it stops fitting you. It's no body's fault - it just happens
Good Luck