Pros
Flexible schedules Your own lab equipment (no sharing) Work:Life balance was good Not a bad place to start a career Jeans are ok
Cons
The company is top heavy to say the least. By that I mean there are too many managers/directors and not enough people actually doing the work. I honestly didn’t know it was possible to have so many managers and directors in one particular group. Everyone wants to drive here. Meetings would often push getting the project completed as fast as possible even if it meant reduced quality. The majority of the time there was clearly a disconnect between what was expected and what was actually a feasible solution to a problem. I walked out of a few meetings with a bad taste in my mouth. Pay is lower than average and this negatively impacts the morale of the workplace. Vacation time is horrible for new employees (<6 years) with just 2 weeks provided per year. Let me re phrase that.. if you want to take a week off of work (5 days) then it will take you 6 months to do so. Your sick time accrues faster than your vacation time for the first 6 years! Of course no one wants you to use the sick time and many questions will be asked if you do. Not uncommon for your supervisor to have a completely different degree than you and not have a good grasp on the technical work you’re doing (hard to get promotions this way). I felt trapped at this company and felt like I worked to hard in college to just settle for this company. You’ll hear a lot about “up” times and “down” times at this company. Thankfully I’ve never had to experience a down time.