Illumina reviews

3.3

46% would recommend to a friend

(2,565 total reviews)
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Jacob Thaysen

53% approve of CEO

33% positive business outlook

Illumina has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 2,565 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Illumina employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

3K reviews
1.0
May 20, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I would like to preface by saying this review only applies to Operations. I truly enjoyed working with some of the people and teams I was exposed to. I continuously learned in my role and met some great people along the way. The science is innovative and feels great to be part of an industry leading company. This is a great place to start a career in and get your foot in the biotech industry. The gained skillsets will truly be advantageous to have for future roles. They also offer Flex time off, which is great when you have bandwidth to take the time off. Benefits are also great compared to other companies and of course the beautiful campus was a nice plus.

Cons

cons. so many cons. As much as there were pros to working at this place, it's up to you to figure out what is most important in your life. their favorite, toxic, motto 'Move fast, embrace change' -Work-life balance or just work. It is essentially expected to work at least 50+ hours a week, and constantly be available-including weekends for 'urgent matters'. Since operations is 24/7, it's an unspoken but expected rule. Meetings are back to back and lunch is a privilege most days. The burnout is real, and never addressed even when brought up. The politics run rampant here, including constant hiding of information even within teams to ensure you won't be shown up by others on your team. The competition carries over even between other teams. Some groups will not hesitate to throw you under in hopes to one day attain your role. Promotions are rare unless you make the 'right friends'. Constant turnover made it hard to ever feel stable and roles were never backfilled or only backfilled via internal candidates. Managers/supervisors here are 'people managers'-aka don't expect any guidance from them and really don't care about their 'people', only timelines. They are there to make sure your projects and deliverables are on time and give quarterly reviews. So, you essentially have to learn on your own. illumina offers one week off during fourth of july and a 'winter break' during christmas to new years. most times, operations still works-just for awareness. Proceed with risk.

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Illumina Response
5y
Your comments are concerning because they are inconsistent with Illumina’s policies and practices. We are committed to maintaining a culture that is open, inclusive, and fair. It would be helpful to better understand your experiences. If you are willing to discuss your comments, please contact an HR representative at HumanResources@illumina.com
1.0
Jun 14, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Coworkers were cool people. Benefits (not salary, but insurance benefits) are pretty good. They try to maintain a diverse workplace.

Cons

To start, they underpay their engineers when compared to similar jobs in industry. Management will make you work 60 hour weeks, then tell you “if you’re working 60 hours you’re doing something wrong”. They’ll give you an exorbitant workload, tell you what to prioritise, and then full on yell at you in front of team members if you don’t finish what they told you not to prioritise. When I told my old boss I had covid, she told me “don’t get a covid test and don’t report anything if you have gotten a covid test because I don’t want you to be out of work for 2 weeks”. They give raises based on your initial salary negotiations, regardless of the quality of work you complete. To add to that last statement, after my first raise I was making less money than people who started after me, with less experience, BEFORE they got their raise. Management will take 20-30 days off per year, and work from home more than 60% of the time; meanwhile, they tell you that you’re expected to be onsite 100% of the time and force you to log your time off if you work remote for even half a day. Don’t think about taking more than 5 days off in a year. Finally, don’t even THINK about telling your boss you are overwhelmed. I had a meeting with my old boss where I very calmly and professionally told her that I was overwhelmed from working 11-12 hours per day, every single day, and that our team needed more help. She then went to HR and told them that I cussed her out in front of my teammates, resulting in my termination. It was a blatant lie that very easily could have been disproven, but HR chose to blindly side with my manager. The reason for this is simple; it costs less money to fire an engineer and rehire one than it does a manager. This was my experience in MTO (manufacturing technical operations). I won’t state my specific team, but this was a manager who had multiple documented complaints and pending investigations (plural) through HR. Do yourself a favor, and do not work for this company.

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Illumina Response
4y
Your comments are concerning because they are inconsistent with Illumina’s policies and practices. We are committed to maintaining a culture that is open, inclusive, and fair. It would be helpful to better understand your experiences. If you are willing to discuss your comments, please contact an HR representative at HumanResources@illumina.com
1.0
Jun 26, 2020

Messed up

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good mission and Good campus

Cons

Promotion not based on performance but based on perception . Company knows how to market diversity and inclusion- it is all white Boys clubs in GQO . All this white VP to save their job they promote women so they look good and check mark they meet the goal . If you are women you are golden ( you don’t need to perform because perception is build in) and if you are non white guy men than you screwed despite you have more education , medical device experience and delivering the results to company. Run away this company because CEO level their is diversity but when you go 1 - 2 level down like Sr VP , VP level all mess. Product development run this company ( another women in charge) and GQO run by all white guys and. no one in GQO have guts to push back to product development team to deliver correct product to manufacture. GQO cannot push back to product development so chaos starts in GQO and people Sr. Director / Director below take all load and all golden parachutes goes to Director to all way Sr . VP level. Career failure is guaranteed if you are not in correct white man camp unless you are women

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Illumina Response
6y
Your comments are concerning because they are inconsistent with Illumina’s policies and practices. We are committed to maintaining a culture that is open, inclusive, and fair. It would be helpful to better understand your experiences. If you are willing to discuss your comments, please contact an HR representative at HumanResources@illumina.com
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