Genentech reviews

-extreme politics. Management heavy -leadership completely disconnected and out of touch with individual contributors, top down leadership approach. Lack of appreciation for employees. Saw one director cancel $200 awards sent to some senior employees for a grueling 1.5+ year project with non-stop 12+ hour work days sent by another leader as a thank you, because it "didnt fit within their dept budget". Dozens of other employees outside of that dept did receive their little award for putting in 1.5 FTE time for more than a year. Not even a verbal thank you or congratulations other than an email sent out to the large (~30 person) team. Project was on top of normal day to day responsibilities. -over proceduralized, very hard to get work done within expected timelines -most days now mandated on site, for many people this means 3-4+ hours of commuting each day unless you can want to move to the area, leadership tracking attendance with threats against performance reviews, even for employees who already work extremely long days at home. Knew of many employees commuting 5+ hours in a day without ample salary to live in the area. -leadership with no knowledge of work processes, bottlenecking, hurdles -non-existent resource management for project loading -extremely hard to influence change, lack of decision-making causing extra workload for individual contributors -significant waste on outlandish projects and fun items people dont need, instead of hiring enough employees to get the work done properly -not enough staff to support GMP facilities, often no backfilling for lost headcount

Lots of smart people, but success is often obscured by poor communication, bureaucracy and a lack of creativity, as well as office politicking. Very disappointing given Genentech's reputation.