Pros
I came to Freenome from a large global biotech company over a year ago and have no regrets. The company seems to borrow a lot of innovative practices from the leading non-life-sciences “tech” companies, both big and smaller startups, in terms of systems it uses and maximizing efficiencies. This is a breath of fresh air coming from a more old-school, legacy corporation. Mission: Who doesn’t know someone impacted by cancer? Early detection will save millions of lives and change healthcare as we know it - for me that was a major factor in joining. Culture: In general I find the culture to be quite transparent and positive. The CEO and senior leadership do a company all-hands meeting every other week briefing employees on everything from R&D milestones to clinical trial progress to changes in our products' regulatory/healthcare guidelines to construction on our new stand-alone building. In my experience, most companies do all-hands only once a quarter so this was quite a welcome change. The interview process is rather unique. Every candidate has a culture interview where someone from a different function/department interviews you and asks scenario-based questions related to Freenome’s 5 core values (trust, empathy, integrity, servant leadership, strive for greatness). This step, while not the easiest interview to go through yourself, seems to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to hiring quality coworkers. No matter how much of a superstar you are - whether in science, engineering, or another part of the business - if you can’t be self-aware and treat others with respect, that will most likely come to the light during this interview. Comp and Benefits: Salaries seem very market-competitive, they offer a generous amount in stock options, and there’s a newly rolled out annual bonus program (which is somewhat rare for a pre-commercial company). Also, Freenome has the best and least costly medical insurance options I’ve ever seen…I’ve worked for some pretty large reputable companies so that’s saying a lot. Work-life balance: I’m sure it varies depending on your function’s (R&D, Clinical, Regulatory etc) critical timelines, and deliverables, but overall I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the consideration and flexibility when it comes to blending work with personal commitments and respecting boundaries. I thought coming to a startup, this could be an issue but it hasn’t been so far.
Cons
I’d like to first address a few negative reviews I’ve read on glassdoor which, in my opinion, are NOT cons. These are related to comments made about the company having a "toxic work environment”, "heavy micromanaging", "limited career development", and “poor work/life balance”. I suppose there have been teams or managers over the course of the company’s relatively short history when these things have existed. However I have to say that in my time here, and I work with several departments across the organization, these issues cannot be further from reality based on what I’ve seen. On the contrary, I’ve never worked at a company where the voices of non-management employees are more openly or freely expressed and taken into consideration by leadership. Never have I seen backstabbing or manipulation tactics as mentioned by one or two reviewers. As far as micromanaging, this is another complaint that I haven’t really seen much here. I’m sure it happens occasionally, but most of the leaders I interact with give a great deal of autonomy to their team members and encourage open ‘white space’ thinking to bring their own ideas to the table and actually implement them as the organization scales. Career growth - I am constantly seeing individuals get promoted for work well-done as they move into that next level of their careers. In fact, Freenome has two performance review/promotion cycles a year (every 6 months) whereas most companies have only one. Work/life balance, as mentioned above, is highly encouraged. All that said, the company is not perfect. There is room for improvement as with any organization. It’s expanding quickly and yes there are some managers in stretch roles that may not be seasoned leaders and can use more coaching. This is all part of being in an early stage, fast-paced company where growing pains are inevitable. There is a certain degree of woke-ness and political/social virtue-signaling that is unfortunately becoming more and more common in the SF tech world. I believe a company and its employees can, and should, embrace diversity and inclusion, but not to the point where it becomes its own narrative that distracts from the core mission and can also alienate other employees. There seems to be less of it than this time a year ago. At the end of the day, diversity is part of Freenome’s fabric, going above and beyond to ensure diverse clinical trials which is a huge leap forward from the way big pharma/biotech have done things for decades.
