death spiral - Associate Principal Scientist Merck Employee Review

1.0
Nov 10, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Salary and benefits, while diminishing, are still better than average

Cons

- intense downsizing, job insecurity. Whole sites and departments are being slashed. - poor managers - no growth opportunities - scientific talent has already left. Those who remain are not the "best and brightest". - regularly occurring scandals show that the talk of superior morals and culture is just that, talk.

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5.0
Jul 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work Life Balance, Benefits, Remote Work

Cons

Easy to stagnate if not being proactive about building skills and networking

4.0
Jun 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great benefits like medical/dentist/vision, pension, stock option, 401k match. Co workers are excellent, pretty good on site symposiums, lot of diversity clubs/activities. Innovation is extremely welcomed. Diversity in research portfolio. AI/ML is heavily invested to make databases more efficient.

Cons

Micro managing, especially within the biologics department, potentially others. Promotions are limited, and pay bump is poor. Company invests too much in buying companies rather than keeping talent - lay offs let go of great talented people. Merck is afraid of investing into exploratory biology and doesn’t take risk - they even admit they would rather see other companies clinical data or R&D data rather than taking a risk. Although it’s slow going in building new software, current databases are slow and needs much improvement. Extremely poor work/life balance.

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