Mathematica reviews

Caveat that management says they're working on many of the following (hope to update this in the future!): -Low pay with no location adjustment. Pay is low especially considering that offices are in expensive cities. -Employee satisfaction seems to differ significantly based on their division and their specific supervisor. Human services and international have less positive reputations than the health division. Ability to get promoted seems tightly linked to your supervisor and how much they're involved in your professional growth. -Can be harder to grow professionally within the company if you start in a junior role. Management says that there's a path for every employee, but employees that start at the C (analyst) and D (researcher) level have a clearer path than B (associate) level employees. -Work-life balance is great for the analyst level, and less good at the researcher level or the associate level. Associates in particular work more hours than any of my colleagues at other levels, and it feels like they're taken advantage of because of their low salaries. Huge burnout and turnover at the associate level because of this (long hours with low salaries) -Management is not transparent about promotions and how the promotion process works. -Can be harder to succeed and get promoted if you're not an extroverted go-getter. You're ultimately responsible for getting more work for yourself, and that requires talking to your colleagues and finding the right fit among projects--which can be tough to do since we're spread out all across the US, so it's not as simple as chatting at the water cooler. Many opportunities come from personal relationships with colleagues. -Mostly white

There are a lot of trade-offs you make for that 5% you get in stocks each year based upon your salary ... First, the other benefits Mathematica offers are inferior (at best) compared to most other companies. This includes the super expensive health plans, vision, and dental options the company offers that don't provide much in coverage. This is especially true for the dental and vision plans. Mathematica also *does not* provide full pay for maternity leave for *any* length of time. The most they offer is 60% of your pay for a month or two if you're a woman. If you're a guy, you don't get any pay at all for paternity leave, and can only rely on whatever vacation time you have for pay while you're on FMLA. The politics are the biggest con by far. Promotions and raises do not seem to be based upon merit or ability so much as company politics and who in leadership is pulling for you. I've seen project leaders drive a project right into corrective action only to be rewarded with a promotion months later because their supervisor and/or VP wanted it to happen. Despite being "Employee Owned" you don't really have much say on the projects or type of work you get assigned, particularly if you don't have a supervisor with the ear of someone in a senior leadership role, or a supervisor that cares. After the recent reorganizations, people no longer have supervisors located in the same office (or even state), which doesn't help matters.