Amgen Senior Associate reviews

Advancement seems to be less dependent on excellent job performance than it does on favoritism. Requests for vacation are frowned upon as though you are abandoning the company, and it is not uncommon to be asked if you still need a certain day off, several weeks after the vacation was approved (the implication obviously being you should cancel your pre-approved vacation). Each employee's end-of-year ranking is based more on meaningless metrics that have little or nothing to do with productivity. Any hint of criticism, no matter how constructive or logical, to the ideas of leadership or leadership's favorites is seen as having a negative attitude and not being a team player. This reputation sticks with employees forever. The result of this is a site-wide mouth shut policy with no open dialogue. Much work occurs on projects for which the only purpose is to keep people busy. The employee review and internal hiring processes are highly secretive, with most outcomes coming as complete surprises to everyone. When an outcome is negative, affected employees are usually not told, and must rely on hearing it through the grape-vine from their peers.

- IS has been outsourced to IBM. Due to various issues on both sides, the transition has been messy and people are leaving Amgen or IBM fairly often - Since people in IS are not sure of their job stability anymore, people are leaving for other companies - New changes in IS are difficult due to process issues within Amgen and IBM so things are put on hold - Most of the feedback from peers and your personal assessment is not read since reviews, merit increases and so forth are decided among managers before the feedback process starts. - ESPP discount went down from 15% to 5%. - Tuition reimbursement is harder to get but you still get 10k/yr