Pros
My scientist and engineering colleagues in R&D are very intelligent, motivated, and believe in the product and the mission. Some flexibility in schedule has allowed me to avoid burnout.
Cons
After working for 10+ years at Illumina, I can say that I've learned a lot about product development in the industry. However, I am convinced that politics within my department have had a disheartening effect on my career. Promotions do not reflect accomplishment, in fact promotions are only handed out to those who speak the loudest. Speaking to quality and doing my best to protect the customer have resulted in backstabbing and retaliation. I would avoid working for Consumables Assay Dev team for any longer than a couple of years, and don't speak out against the VP or you'll regret it. Pay here is very low and a recent realignment of the scientist track enabled a much more subjective approach to promotions. Great for Scientist 1's because they are automatically promoted to Sr. Sci. It took me 6 years to get to that title, but they aren't changing Staff or Sr. Staff so this is effectively a depromotion. No bonus this year, sorry. Oh, and by the way, those RSUs that were issued back when the stock was at 500...now worth less than half. So my pay for those past years was effectively reduced by that amount, since Illumina argues that pay is part of a whole package. Maybe the stock price will come back some day, but not if we keep losing legal and regulatory decisions costing hundreds of $M.