Pros
All things considered, Stryker is a good company to work for, BUT this is heavily dependent upon what you are looking for in your career and what department you work in. The company is run by Sales and Marketing. If you are not in these groups, you will most likely not have the same level of growth potential or responsibility as you would if you were in either group. They take their corporate culture very seriously, and go out of their way to listen to employee feedback to continue to refine the culture, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Depending on what function you are in, and (obviously) your skill set/potential, there are a lot of opportunities to grow and gain new experiences, whether that is within your current division/function/geography, or in a new combination of those 3 characteristics. Stryker is essentially a number of different companies (Divisions) operating under the Stryker umbrella, so you can certainly move across divisions. Work/life balance is very good, truthfully, I rarely had to work past 5pm. There are a lot of great people at Stryker, so (if & when) they go back to the office, it is relatively easy to develop personal relationships with your coworkers. When we worked in the office (prior to covid) there were a number of great Employee Resource Groups (ERG's) such as Stryker Women's Network (SWN), Stryker Emerging Professionals (SEP) and many more, there was also sports leagues that you could participate in such as 3-on-3 basketball and beach volleyball (dependent on location). Stryker makes it 'comfortable' for their employees, with annual performance based raises & bonuses, as well as a great discretionary 7% annual 401(k) contribution on top of their competitive match per pay period. Good vacation allowance, full healthcare (HSA or PPO), vision, dental, short/long-term disability etc. You will get a sense of purpose from your work here given the nature of the products they make and sell. In short, every product that Stryker offers will either save or improve a patient's life. From knee replacement implants to hospital beds and everything in-between, the nature of Stryker's product will lend itself to personal connections which give you some sense of purpose and meaning.
Cons
Despite a lot of the great things about Stryker, there are a number of down sides as well. First and foremost, base salary/starting pay is not competitive for young professionals. Stryker always wants you to look at the "total compensation" which is more competitive when you look at 401(k) and other benefits, however, for younger employees who need a higher relative cash flow to operate on a daily basis, the salaries are not good. Getting a promotion or good annual raise increase is subjective across the company and mostly depends on who your manager is. There are employees who get promoted every year for mediocre work, and some who may be in a given role for 5+ years despite consistently high performance (and everything in-between). In short, Stryker is EXTREMELY relationship based, not so much based on pure performance. Recently, Stryker has leaned in heavily to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I). At face value, I agree and think these are very healthy things to embrace in life and work. The key to DEI, in my opinion is equality, not equity. Equal Opportunity is something that we all should strive for. Equal outcome (equity), destroys motivation and incentives to do great work. With this, despite high performance, you may be getting the same amount of money as someone who goes through the motions and does an OK job. Stryker is top heavy. One look at the org chart and you will see a lot of employees who are manager level and above who may have 1 direct report. There numerous VPs who may have a team of 3 individual contributors or less. There are a lot of 'leaders' and not even close to enough actual workers. With this, decision making is slow and needs to go through many layers in order to actually get anything done. Additionally, until you reach Manager level (or higher in some scenarios) you have no true decision making authority. Change is constant at Stryker, particularly around Org Structure. In roughly 4 years at the company I had 8 different managers (2 of these were based on my decisions to change roles).