- (This isn’t necessarily a con, but I think it’s important to note because Suvoda almost exclusively hires STEM grads into this role and no one I have spoken to knew what the job really entailed when they started.) Please take the job description seriously if you are applying: you are not in a clinical setting, you are not doing research, you are not doing any math and you are not doing any coding outside the occasional SQL query. You are being hired largely to manage paperwork, technical documents and client correspondence.
- When I was hired, I was told that the APM role involved spending “a few months” working in phone and email support as a method of training. The truth that upper management has recently been forced to concede after being called out on it is that your time working in support is not just training, but rather a wholesale part of the gig. Furthermore, I can’t think of anyone in my starting class who phased out of support work earlier than 6 or 7 months in. If you aren’t promoted, you could end up doing this for over a year, which is significant because support can create a healthy chunk of extra work for you on top of what is expected by your project team.
- Suvoda is a pretty young company and up until now, being assigned direct reports appears to have been a by-product of promotion for people in-house who have achieved mastery of Suvoda’s product and processes and are experienced in dealing with clients. The problem, which I think has contributed to Suvoda’s relatively high turnover rate, is that high-performing employees are not always well equipped to manage other people, for any number of reasons. This issue is compounded by the fact that individual managers are given something of a long leash in how they deal with their underlings. To the company’s credit, they have recently started to recognize internal people management as a separate challenge from technical oversight and client account management and I believe they are working to split out these responsibilities in the future.
- Your main clients will be clinical trial and drug supply chain managers at pharmaceutical companies — these folks are very high strung and very demanding, and they are fully aware of the power they hold over you. This is especially so for large accounts that are important to the company’s business strategy. In my experience, this translates to quite a bit of downward pressure being exerted by upper and middle management onto lower level employees. Of course this dynamic exists in many workplaces, but it’s magnified in this case because Suvoda is still a relatively new, relatively small company within a field (IRT) that is itself just a small part of what goes into running a clinical trial. The pharma companies truly hold all the weight in the relationship.
- You won’t pick up much in the way of hard transferrable skills and knowledge unless you find that you want to work at an IRT competitor or another software vendor in the e-clinical field.
- Given all the above and that most APMs are usually pretty busy, starting salary is low. There is potential for quick successive promotions, but this is becoming more competitive as the company grows. It appears to have been almost the norm in the past for people who stuck around a year to be promoted and this no longer the case. Benefits are getting better, but still aren’t great, again because this is a young, relatively small company that doesn’t bring a ton of weight to the table with benefits providers.
