Illumina Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Illumina full-time

Pros – Great co-workers
Fast-paced environment to keep you from getting bored
Great technology
What we do is helping change the world

Cons – The fast-paced growth over the last decade has caused many gaps in business processes. So, we are trying to build our infrastructure while using small scale processes.

Advice to Senior Management – Look for and ask for the gaps and invest in ways to build the sustainable business practices.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Illumina full-time

Pros – - new projects left and right so there's always a lot to work on.
- constantly working on new technologies, legacy products do no stick around for too long.
- young and vibrant co-workers. lots of sports going on
- decent cafeteria

Cons – - shifting focus can cause projects to start and end abruptly
- the motto to "hire the best" can cause quite a competitive landscape that's difficult for junior positions to be adequately recognized.
- portfolio expansion outpaces resourcing which leads to multi-tasking and project inefficiencies.

Advice to Senior Management – Stick to a few core products and do them well.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

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

Pros – - nice facilities
- many capable colleagues throughout the years

Cons – - Career advancement is non-existent unless you play ridiculous games and are a political backstabber. Actual work performance and quality get you nowhere at this company
- Chaotic and disorganized as a company, and they are proud of it
- Over-rewarded executive and sales teams to the point of lewd extravagance, while all other departments struggle and are treated harshly
- Very arrogant attitude and overall corporate culture. They act as if you are lucky to be with them, hence they get to treat you like a thing
- World renowned terrible middle management. By terrible I mean how they treat people, their competence levels, political acuity, and overall professionalism. To say they are a joke is an understatement
- Terrible upper management that perpetuates a horrible environment to suite their (mostly financial) needs, and not the needs of the company or employees as a whole. Working for them is a career stopper

Advice to Senior Management – Your work force resents you and the terrible decisions you have made. The gross misallocation of incentives and advancement is apparent. You need to seriously mind your employees who have worked their tails off to give you a seven figure salary and reach the $1billion+ mark. You have not done this, and as a result, you have lost the vast majority of your top talent in 2011. Suites you right.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Illumina full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – The technology is awesome but even that is being tarnished by the poor quality in recent years. Initially you will be very excited and impressed with the "energy" of the company, but slowly you will realize that the energy is really chaos. You will question how you are able to work in such a crazy, disfunctional environment. It's not just a challenge to work at Illumina, it's a work triathalon that will end up breaking you down mentally and physically. This in turn will more than prepare you for any future job challenges.

Cons – I will never forget my time at Illumina because I have never worked for such a horrible company in my life. It was all about the bottom line and anything else such as quality, process improvements, treating folks with respect and encouraging a healthy work life balance took a back seat. I noticed that during this recession the mid and upper management that were a part of the "good ole boys and gals club" often received promotions, and executives paychecks seemed to grow an a very inflated rate while the common workers barely got a cost of living increase and saw their restricted stock plummet in value. I am only mentioning this because if the company bottom line is not doing well (there was a layoff recently), why are the executives getting a fatter paycheck and why are you building newer facilities?

Advice to Senior Management – The technology needs to be taken to the next level and you need mid-managers that know what they are doing and will treat your everyday worker with respect. Probably best that you merge with another company that can help you get the technology into the healthcare setting because you certainly won't be able to do it with your current management.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Illumina full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Pay is good; nice building; great technology; CEO approachable

Cons – Some ineffective execs including VP HR, SVP GM Life Sciences (not to be trusted) and horrendous work/life balance

Advice to Senior Management – sell to Roche

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Illumina

Pros – Im proud to have Illumina on my resume. This is a fast paced, do or die, sink or swim, you better keep up type of company. To be the leader in anything- you have to fight hard to make sure you remain on top so understand that there are a lot of high expectations. The people who work here are intelligent and very friendly. The dress code is business casual- which is awesome. The campus is beautiful.

Cons – Did I mention it's fast paced with high expectations? You're going to have a large workload with the expectations to get it done- you're working 40 hours a week? Then youre not working enough and trust me, sooner or later it will show. We tend to come up with great ideas to solve the severe lack of structure- but we can never seem to sustain. We work in silos too much just trying to get our jobs done and keep up with the high demands. You want to take time off? Psh! Vacation means just stopping your work, letting the mountain grow only to come back to a bigger mess. If you're not consistently being proactive- vacations aren't worth it.

Advice to Senior Management – Do not forget where you came from on Towne Center and before- you need every single individual that is working for you. Remember that open, "we're all on the same team" moral? You're slowly losing it- be careful not to turn into just another corporate company. Keep alive one of the biggest reasons we all wanted to be here.... But I do like your new executive wing!

Former Employee – worked at Illumina

Pros – Working with new technology and a few interesting people.
Good personal time off system.
Holiday events and happy hours are fantastic.

Cons – Recruitments, selections and promotions are based on internal political
agenda, for example hiring friends to guarantee personal loyalty at the expense of other
highly performing and more-qualified employees.

Managers believe that the more people they manage and the
bigger the budget, the higher the chance that they will be promoted. This results in raging
battles around budgets, strategies and operations.

There are many management layers in the organization, thus,
hindering communication and resulting in slower execution.

Muted level of commitment and enthusiasm teams. Even
successful results cannot be shared and celebrated due to animosity and internal negative
competition.

There is a high rate of absenteeism and a high employee
turnover rate.

Advice to Senior Management – To quote Gandhi: "Be the change you want to see.” The most powerful leaders are almost
always the role models for the change they seek. If the CEO practices bad politics, no
amount of training or coaching will change the management team.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Illumina

Pros – One consistent thing I have read in these reviews that is very true is that this place is very fast paced. This forces you to prioritize and will prepare you very well for any other organization (as no one lasts long here, whether it be through their own free will or the company's)

Cons – No respect and no work life balance. Sacrifice of weekends and evenings is consistently not just expected, but required (yes you read that correctly). Poorest quality management I have seen in all my years as a working professional, as there is zero reward for excellent work, hard work, and effort. Only the most blatant of kissing up will get you anywhere here, and it is very sad to see this go on right in front of you. This is due to the very cutthroat and often immature politics that plague this organization.

Very blame ridden environment, with lots of blame passed between departments and not very much inter-department collaboration.

Company often times appears to refuse to get affairs in order, with everyone scrambling at the last minute due to poor execution and bad leadership, and very unclear direction.

Advice to Senior Management – Let Roche come in and take over. It would be better for your employees, customers, and the scientific community in general

You've exploited and ruined this company, and you should be held accountable

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Illumina

Pros – Although the benefits and perks at Illumina are amazing it's the the employees at Illumina that keeps the company strong. The yoga/gym/recreation on site and the monthly happy hours / half yearly sponsored corporate parties allow us to network with so many individuals from various pars of the company. Illumina does know how to care of its own. The salary is pretty competitive with stock options, bonus, raise, etc.

You learn a lot of valuable skills at Illumina in such a small amount of time. They expect you to hit the ground running. 1 or 2 years at Illumina is the equivalent of 3-5 years at a regular company.

Cons – When I came on board with Illumina, I was hired specifically more certain skill sets. I have seen myself and others included have their positions radically evolve into something completely different. Regardless of whether or not you are satisfied with the change. Projects and priorities could shift instantly, leaving things a bit chaotic at the office.

Illumina's core values don't seem to align with your personal goals and end of year review, which tends to lower your raise/bonus. Whether this is on purpose or not I leave that to the employee.
There seemed to be a disconnect in communication and goals between upper/middle management and rest of the teams.

Advancement and movement across the organization was difficult and hard get approval of for some employees. No structure was in place to show you a path to becoming a senior person on the team or move into a manager or assistant director role.

Although Illumina does hire outstanding employees, there seemed to be a lack of basic MS skill sets or analytics for some of the employe thereby having no understanding of their data the to create presentations critical for senior management on how their business line is doing.

Turnover is quite high. The burnout and level that you are running at Illumina can be exciting but also stressful.

Advice to Senior Management – Structured and concise path for growing and advancing to the next level at our position.
Find a way to keep top talented employees from turning over after several years. Turnover is quite high.

Current Employee – been working at Illumina

Pros – Some amazingly dedicated and smart people work at illumina. Could not ask for better coworkers.
The core business is interesting. ( i.e. High throughput DNA sequencing )
The field is very dynamic and fascinating.

Cons – Management is very poor. Slow to make decisions, make bad decisions, they backtrack, communication is bad and when they make decisions they want it ASAP because they thought of it last minute.
Constantly operate in fire-fighting mode, not enough resources.
Work life balance is a joke

Advice to Senior Management – If you are 'leadership' you should really provide some leadership - Your not doing that now. You really need to re-inspire your employees or your top talent will leave. When you push employees very hard to work long hours and demotivate them you will not get the same results.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend