Genentech Reviews

I have been working at Genentech

Pros – Benefits and people. Very focused on the end user of our products which is the patient.

Cons – Culture is very clickly. VP level of MCCO is very controlling. Subordinates appear to be afraid to challange ideas.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Genentech

Pros – Benefits and salary are competitive
Genentech looks good on a resume
It had a nice campus, although it can be difficult to get around because it is so large and shuttles are needed to transport people between buildings

Cons – No opportunities for career growth
The morale is very low and getting worse
Poor communication and guidance
Collaboration with Roche is challenging

Advice to Senior Management – Work toward bringing back the Genentech culture. Provide more leadership training because manager leadership skills seem to be lacking. Allow more decision making in SSF.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Genentech

Pros – Easy Job: there's hardly any accountability so not much is required on the delivery end; most weeks can usually get by with working 30 hours or less
Great Benefits & Salary
As many business class flights to HQ in Europe as you want

Cons – No hope for promotion or advancement either above or below--senior management is dead set in its ways and will not change; the best you can do as a manager is watch out for yourself and do what's acceptible. If you are a true people manager and identify/relate to your reports this may not be the best place for you to work.

Advice to Senior Management – If things are going to get fixed it really needs to be from the very top. I have a hard time imagining that IT is on Ian's radar at all--if he's truly responsible/accountable for what goes on below him he should spend some time thinking about how to fix this broken department.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Genentech

Pros – Great benefits, wealth of tools and training to do your job, reasonably stable company

Cons – Company stability in question with patent expiration and Roche take over. Even before this, advancement, outside of core biotech, correlated only with connections or whether you represented a desired demographic niche. Now, that's doubly true.

Advice to Senior Management – re-introduce merit as a criteria for advancement in divisions outside the labs.

I worked at Genentech

Pros – Best benefits and fun place to work.

Cons – Genentech used to be a great company until the Roche merger. Biggest weakness is middle management. Unprofessional and political behavior is tolerated. Hard-working employees are written up by incompetent management.

Advice to Senior Management – Promote professionalism and improve middle management so they are seasoned and fair.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Genentech

Pros – Good science, real leader in research

Cons – very limited personal career growth

Advice to Senior Management – management need to place them in the position of their employee

I worked at Genentech

Pros – Great people! Very bright, very committed and fun to work with.
Excellent pay and benefits. And lots of little perks like a concierge service and onsite massages, haircuts and car washes. The best corporate cafeteries I have ever eaten at.
High prestige. People in the field know and respect Genentech and that halo gives off a nice glow.

Cons – Very high pressure and the corporate structure and conflicting institutional imperatives make it very hard to get things done.
this is particular true in the various marketing and sales related functions. Clinical and legal set the agenda in the company and take very conservative positions in terms of marketing and sales efforts. That is fine but the people at the top of marketing and the commercial side of the company are continually putting pressure to deliver a bigger number and develop innovative and cutting edge programs. As a result commerical is continually butting heads with legal and clinical and the conflict takes place at the level of product manager to attorney. The product manager has no leverage in that discussion but they get little support from their upper management or forgiveness when they can't deliver.
Genentech is moving more and more towards being simply another big pharma company. The merger with Roche will accelerate that. The mis-match in culture between those big pharma people being brought in to run the company and the people who came to Genentech because of its more "independent" reputation has made it difficult for many of those people to move up in the company.

Advice to Senior Management – Resolve the conflict between commercial and legal at the top of the organization instead of having the operational people waste their time and sanity.
Begin to move people up from within the organization. Otherwise the talented folks in lower and middle management will leave.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Genentech

Pros – They responded my application very quickly and they are very nice to the new employees. The city is really good to live in.

Cons – The company is too big and they hire too many people at one time and they was bought by Roush.

Advice to Senior Management – Try not to be so aggressive and make the business step by step. And also focus more on the employers.

I have been working at Genentech

Pros – A personal pride that comes with knowing you work for Genentech. The satisfaction of feeling like you can actually take part in rather senior level type of decisionmaking even if you are not at a senior level.

Cons – Officer level leadership treats employees like children, giving them virtually no input to the pedantic budget process or overall vision of the department. Sometimes I thought that the most senior management genuinely didn't understand technology. Even the simplest decisions like hiring mid-level staff have to go through extensive review at the VP level. Also, and the worst part -- senior management doesn't even know or care about the "bread and butter" services we provide, sometimes it's like these things are actively DISLIKED.

Advice to Senior Management – Trust your employees and managers. Appreciate your scientists, patients, and the genius of biotechnology. Hire people at all levels with both a passion AND talent, because they DO exist!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Genentech

Pros – working at a company that does make a difference to the patients and their families lives makes going to work worthwhile, enabling them to live longer if just by a few months make a qorld of difference.

Cons – the Roche comglomerate is making changes to the company that will be detrimentral in the long run both the company and eventually the patients. the 'brain drain' has become significant enough that the future pipeline is jepordized

Advice to Senior Management – indicating that continuing the company as an independent is much different from the reality that is Genentech being integrated into the Roche world wide family