Amgen Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Amgen full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great pay, benefits, perks and life balance

Cons – Overly political, if you aren't "in" with the managers you will be pushed around and pushed out. HR is useless and in no ways supports the working class.

Advice to Senior Management – It would benefit the company to at least look into the working classes complaints. If you keep those actually doing the work happy, you might be able to keep them there and doing the work...

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Amgen full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Women get promoted over men. Is that really a positive?

Cons – ...so much so that there is a glass ceiling for MEN as a result of overblown reverse discrimination....whereby women are considered a minority group to be promoted over men

Advice to Senior Management – There should be at least a 1:1 ratio between men and women in Director + positions, wouldn't you think? There isn't.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Amgen full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – The company still pays bonus and RSU for FTEs.

Cons – Laying off FTEs almost every other month in the past 6 months that I am aware of, and the company hires contractors for those positions.

Advice to Senior Management – I don't think that strategy is good for the company in the long run.

Current Employee – been working at Amgen

Pros – Great pay and benefits and their commitment to quality.

Cons – Don't expect development, promotion opportunities. There aren't any. All new workers are now contract workers for positions that aren't even offered to current employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Make decisions and get the right people in the job who know how to manage people.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Amgen full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Benefits are competitive.
Location is desirable for families and because of weather, but there are no other companies in the industry within 50 miles.
Name recognition can be helpful in pursuit of other jobs.
Many nice people sill work at the company.

Cons – Unethical conduct
Management looking out for #1
Lack of career development and no attempt to improve the situation despite 4 years of negative feedback from staff.
Disinterest in staff as human beings
Focus on bottom line and process, not on quality or patients

Advice to Senior Management – Find your moral compass
Do what is right for your staff and for patients

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Amgen full-time

Pros – Benefits are among the best in the Industry. People at the "working" level (i.e. below Director) are great, they are dedicated, well qualified and they really care about doing a great job. Facilities are fairly state of the art. Corporate (ATO) offers a select few to work from home or another Amgen office.

Cons – Non-diverse: few blacks and hispanics or other minorities (ACO). Upper level (EDs/VPs) are "friends of friends" that have a poor track record of being competent-they're "YES" people and care not for those under them. Management drives a culture of do more with less to the ridiculous measure (no staff, take shortcuts and hide information), and they treat people very badly. Amgen no longer cares about innovation, quality or the patient. Backdoor lobbying and pay offs are the norm to get their way with Government. Bradway is a finance guy-it's ALL about the cash now. You will work until you're broken mentally and physically and won't be recognized. You wont be able to transfer until you've been there 2 years or more, even then it's crap shoot. More than likely if your good at what you do and have any bone of integrity, you will be rewarded by being put on a performance improvement program so that Management can cover their backside and blame you for any problems. Training is non-existant or poor. Quality and compliance is only there because they have to be, not because those are values that make a great product. If you're a patient I would worry. If your thinking of being an employee, go Corporate Director or above and you will reap the sweet hours and pay for being a figurehead (friend of a friend in high places)-go for it and treat everyone like crud and say "yes" no matter what-that's the golden ticket right there. Oh, by the way, don't try to help your fellow employees, it only targets you. The culture is one of self preservation and immorality. I am ashamed I fell for it.

Advice to Senior Management – PURGE Director level and above. LEAN your fat in ATO. HIRE & PROMOTE people with competence and integrity, REMEMBER-YOU and YOUR family are a patient. FOCUS on innovation, not acquisitions and salve labor overseas. HIRE leaders that will INVEST in the long haul, not mess things up for a few years and pull the golden parachute. EMPOWER HR to rid Leaders that cripple the organization. INVEST in training and a culture of INTEGRITY and PRIDE. You can make more money doing this than any other capital investment plan. Treat people with respect and actually act on your engagement surveys. Stop hiring NAVY men to lead! Employees are an investment, not expendable.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Amgen full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Benefits such as health care and 401K are good

Cons – Not at Thousand Oaks. The buildings and facilities are old and ugly. The culture is very different than the rest of the company so there are many conflicts between sites.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Amgen full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Generous overall compensation, makes important products that address grievous illnesses, severance packages are generous, nice campus with on-site restaurants and gym

Cons – This is public knowledge: like a number of big bio/pharma companies, Amgen is facing patent expiration on many of its biggest money-makers over the next 2-3 years, cutting income by some 40% with nothing in the product pipeline to replace those products in time...there are going to be some years where the company can't make ends meet. So Amgen is enacting a series of significant layoffs to reduce costs to a similar degree. And that's just what I can tell you based on publicly-available information. Amgen does these layoffs in chunks so they don't make the news, because they treasure their "employer of choice" image.

Day-to-day operations...and more importantly, the annual and semi-annual review process...are controlled by HR. Meaning HR tells the manager what to write in the review, and if the manager balks, HR makes it clear the manager's own position is at risk if they do not comply.

The company leadership points to a "social architecture" component called the "Amgen Values". These are traits identifying how to behave like a good person while getting work done. But senior management itself does not demonstrate these values. Starting with some Directors, then the majority of Executive Directors, and the entirety of VPs and above, they lie, bully, fight, and put underlings "under the bus" to avoid having their own career damaged.

The company HQ in Thousand Oaks is geographically isolated, 50 miles outside Los Angeles. There are no other major employers in the area. If you move your family out here, and things don't work out, you may find yourself pulling up stakes and moving again.

The company's management structure can only be described as turbulent. Hardly any executive has the job they had two years prior.

The CIO has been in the company for some time but in the CIO role for less than two years. She does not demonstrate an understanding of how I.T. works, and shows no technical skills whatsoever, not even earlier in her career. The "big I.T. achievement" she showed off for 2012 wasn't even developed by I.T., and when handed over to I.T. for operational support, became a maintenance nightmare due to its poor design. She has not produced a single strategy or plan to improve actual I.T. capabilities in alignment with business goals.

Finally, her radical re-shuffling of personnel...she has replaced her entire direct-report leadership team in less than two years...reveals the traits she hires for most. If you're female and run or bike in the mountains, you have a career waiting for you at Amgen.

Advice to Senior Management – I see no point in writing any advice here. If they were willing to take advice, the company's management would not be the way it is now.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Amgen full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Great mobility within the company
Excellent benefits
Recognition for going above and beyond
Good interactions with upper management
Great development of staff

Cons – Quick to outsource groups without looking at individual contributors
Too much focus on Lean and fast cost savings
Executive leadership depends too heavily on GSS to make decisions on outsourcing work

Advice to Senior Management – Look at the employees you are actually letting go to see if they might have some value to the company
Have a contingency plan for outsourcing

Current Employee – been working at Amgen full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great benefits, stock, health/dental/vision with a big Amgen contribution, TO gym, fantastic eateries on site.
Annual bonuses.
Intellectually stimulating.
Very bright people who are dedicated to their job.

Cons – High stress, overworked departments, many senior managers/directors are promoted and have had no training to manage staff.
Staff morale is at all time low.
Offshore Outsourcing while Amgen jobs are being eliminated.
Outsourced work is poor quality and requires rework over and over.
Senior and Executive Managment are not involved with middle management. They are triple booked in meetings everyday, all day and have lost connection within their own departments.

Advice to Senior Management – Priority 1 EDs, Directors and SM Reconnect with your departments Find a way to let talented staff come up with ideas to make things work better and get a consensus to actually implement those ideas. Not just vent sessions.
Take a hard look at Managment are they the best?
Discontinue unnessary meetings.
Realize that outsourced work may save $ in beginning but the rework costs more in the end.