- Advise to new people seeking opportunities at Vertex: Talk to as many internal people you know before jumping in to the offer. Some might hesitate to tell you the truth at the beginning, fearing the chances of retaliation but use your best knowledge and judgement to get a sense of group culture. Some departments and groups are fine but in R&D Pharm Sci most groups are toxic. - Micromanagement, extremely top-heavy and terrible management: PhD level scientists and senior scientists are just executing what they are being told from managemnt without questioning. Scientists who are doing the experiments, analyzing and interpreting the results do not get any credit and cannot even present their own results. No learning and growth opportunity. No clear criteria for promotion, it is up to the director. And the sad truth is the directors are very well aware of all these but they just want executions, 0% focus on people and retaining people, so much waste of time and knowledge. Most groups have extremely high turnover numbers, completely new group in every 2-3 years except the directors. -Some directors are getting away from HR and executive committee members inspite of having numerous allegations on them for verbal and mental abuse at workplace. They don't treat everyone with respect. They have all the bookwords for diversity, equality, inclusion and best workplace but it is all in words, nothing is actually practiced. - People who are saying no cons either they are fake reviews from HR or they havn't seen the whole picture yet or their group is just awesome, good for them. - The way it is working is they hire the top young entry level talent and burn them out mentally in 2-3 years and hire new talent, this cycle just goes on. Fast pace is not the problem, most top competitive biotech are working at this pace, but lack of clarity from management, disrespect, inequality is the problem.
