Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Employee Reviews about "people"

Pros

Excellent pay and benefits Lot of fun activities within departments You get to work with very smart and creative people that are dedicated to their work and making the world a better place

Cons

None except that It's hard to get a job here. I was really hoping that my contract would turn into a position but I was not so lucky. Regardless, I still enjoyed my year there

Pros

- Positive mission statement, was started by people who's hearts were in the right place - Huge economic stimulus to the nonprofit and NGO sectors and the agencies/firms/consultants that support them - Get to meet and network with top leaders from the political, NGO, entertainment, and science worlds - Huge budgets: if you can dream it and marshal the political will behind it, you can do it - Generous retirement contributions - Can score a free lunch most days due to large number of lunchtime meetings - West coast office hours - everyone is gone by 5:30pm (but you will still have to work from home) - Nice new campus, they make it easy to bike to work even during the rainy months

Cons

The Bottom Line: You need to bring your political A-game if you want to survive here. The Organization: It's common to hear 'this place is like a startup'. It is in some ways. Unfortunately, the more positive aspects of startup culture are not represented here. In a startup people tend to rally behind the mission and all pull together to accomplish goals. Success is interdependent at a startup. Just the opposite is true at the foundation. It's very much a zero-sum game and success is not conceived of as being mutual. Turf wars abound between teams and within teams; struggling for attention/blessing from the highest levels of foundation leadership, funding for their projects, team headcount, and media coverage. This creates a lot of enmity between people and teams, the greatest casualties are the great ideas that never come to fruition and missed opportunities. Being a team player is not on anyone's annual goals. The organization is constantly reorganizing. This creates a lot of uncertainty for projects, issues and the people who work on them. Twelve to eighteen months between major reorganizations is about the norm, shorter for more minor reorgs. Leadership can't seem stick with one operating model long enough to thoroughly vet it before moving on to the next thing. 'Top tier' management consulting companies have deeply embedded themselves at the foundation and attached themselves to influential leaders. These management consultants are very effective at triggering reorganizations which result in a big payday for them. The Leadership: The incentive is to 'manage up' rather than manage across or down. Without a good boss/mentor/champion behind you, it's very difficult if not impossible to advance your career here. Very few people are lucky enough to find someone who wants to pull them up. There is little to no emphasis on working together better. After an internal analysis revealed a level of dissatisfaction around the culture and how people worked together, a senior leader was asked what was being done to improve the situation. This leader indicated to the staff that those are not the metrics that leadership is focused on. The Work: The public perception may be that the foundation is a fulfilling place to work because of all the good it does. The reality is quite different. The foundation is essentially a checkbook and as an everyday employee you are many layers away from the work being performed on the ground by sub-sub-sub-sub-contractors. Additionally, the foundation's grantees and vendors charge what is known as 'Gates rates'. Almost every request for funding or contract is significantly inflated. It's often disheartening to see so much of the budget be eaten up by inflated expenses. The foundation tends to work with the same set of 'partners' who have become entrenched interests at the foundation. There's very little appetite or ability to solicit fresh new ideas from hungry, smaller partners. In the case of these large entrenched, and often highly entitled, partners, the relationships have become dysfunctional - more about the money than the good work. Strategy refreshes for issues are frequent, intense and can take upwards of 5 months to complete. This prevents the real work from being done on the ground. Supporting these strategy refreshes is another huge stream of money for 'top tier' management consulting firms working at the foundation. The Coworkers: Cautionary tale: I got thrown under the bus on my third day of employment after being invited out for a 'welcome lunch' by one of my peers. On the fourth day our group's Business Officer chewed me out because my lunch-mate from the previous day had reported me and intentionally misrepresented what I said. You never know who you can really trust. People from the northwest tend to be pretty frosty and passive aggressive, but the folks here take it to a whole new level. Feeling completely alone in a building of 800+ people was common. Unfortunately, the lower you are on the totem pole, the tougher it is. The lowest level employees, the Program Assistants and Program Coordinators have it the worst. The treatment they received from higher ups was often thoughtless as if they were lesser humans and sometimes bordered on abusive. Many people who are Senior Program Officers and above demand to be waited on hand and foot. Example: many of them don't know how or refuse to print their own documents. HR is completely ineffective. They will always take the side of the higher ranking employee. Staying out of the cross hairs of others is your best and probably only defense.

Pros

Amazing benefits, beautiful campus and meaningful work. The people who work there are passionate for what they do and believe in the mission.

Cons

The issues that are worked on are so important that work life balance can be a struggle. When a person knows that their work might impact people's lives they tend to put more time and effort into it, meaning home life can suffer.

Pros

1. Opportunity to play a part in addressing some of the biggest, most important challenges of our time 2. You'll get professional opportunities here you won't get anywhere else (e.g. who you get to work with, events you get to participate in, speakers that come to the foundation) 3. Unparalleled benefits 4. Beautiful workspace 5. Very flexible working schedule

Cons

You're experience will vary widely team-by-team, but basically: 1. The foundation has yet to create a culture and work environment where people of different backgrounds can thrive. Right now, it favors workaholic types with American communication styles (e.g. speaking in bullets, very direct) 2. Pretty much constant change--the decision-making process for which is not always transparent or fair. 3. While the CEO and executive leadership team are trying to address this, managers are generally pretty weak. Don't expect a lot of time or support in terms of mentorship or support to grow your career. 4. Because there are few open positions, it can be hard to 'move up'--especially from PO to SPO and SPO to DD.

Pros

The opportunities to do good for others are immense at the foundation. You can have a huge impact that helps make other peoples' lives better - if you're given the opportunity, but only if. For a person that's mission driven and who fits the bill of who leadership here see as capable of leading work in public health, this a great place to work. On the other hand, if you don't look like who they're comfortable with, best of luck. If you're in public health this place actually pays an appropriate amount for your expertise.

Cons

During my time I saw the foundation repeatedly state they cared about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and wanted to move us towards being a more diverse workplace, where all felt included and able to bring their best forward for the mission of the org. And yet, during my tenure I saw multiple women, half women of color, leave my division. Not truly out of choice, but because their management chains were atrocious. Retention is key to making any org a truly inclusive space but I'm quite convinced that several white people here see POC as interchangeable - all you need to do is hire the next POC when one leaves rather than fix the toxic system that views us as less capable and yet asks us for more work than our white colleagues. White men fail upwards here. WOC are pushed out. This needs to stop now and not in 2 or 3 or 5 years from now. But from everything I've seen the foundation's plans to address this, it means taking an incredibly slow pace on this to the detriment of those most discriminated against. Every year our division saw new guidelines about what was required to go up for promotion - and yet none were actually applied equitably. It was disheartening to see that I met most of the requirements for a role twice more senior than what I had and to hear from multiple colleagues that they saw that in me as well, but to get the opposite message from my chain of management who were disengaged with my work. There's very little accountability here when you're discriminated against. Many people hired here are bright, smart individuals but know nothing about what they're hired to do. People hired to do public health research and yet have never done it before and are managed by other researchers with no prior experience in the field either. It's the (hopeful) blind leading the blind here and the people purportedly being served and supported by this research deserve better. But you won't get that when you have poor leadership with little relevant experience with the field (here I'm not referring to the CEO, but rather individuals lower than that). Finally, let me repeat: I was gaslit by several people in my division. Bringing it forward did nothing for me besides put a target on my back. White men have questioned my work when they have no expertise in it and they are taken seriously solely because of the seniority of their role but not their actual experience. They can speak to you condescendingly and nothing will happen to them even if you bring it forward. They can repeatedly fail at doing their jobs and be given chance after chance, more training, more time, etc but POC will not be given the same support. I could not recommend this place for any POC at the moment as it's unsafe to be our authentic selves.

Pros

Incredibly talented group of people. Endless opportunities to learn and be exposed to new topics and approaches. Felt valued by the team I worked with.

Cons

Can be very political at times and experience depends on the team and people you work with. A lot of egos to manage as everyone comes from a place where they are used to running the show.

Pros

They do alot of work around the world, but at the same time it's hard to know whether there is actually real positive impact. Everyone was very nice throughout the interview process.

Cons

Very white place with no diversity....look on LinkedIn and you will see that most of the profiles are of white people. There are alot of women but again mostly white women that all look the same. When I interviewed I didn't see any black people at all. It makes you wonder what they mean by diversity because if you can't source any black people to work there then that's a major problem. There also seemed to be alot of former consultants so that should tell you something about their priorities.

Pros

As an intern, I was provided with a clear project and goals for the summer. I was invited to meetings with senior leadership and got to present my recommendations to the team. The office space was amazing, very green and a great atmosphere. Seattle is also amazing in the summer time.

Cons

There isn't a clear program structure for summer interns to get full-time jobs at the Foundation. There is some bureaucracy which makes it hard to get things to change quickly. I was also told that people are passive aggressive though I didn't see that myself.

Pros

The name brand with the foundation is great on your CV, the campus and benefits are great, and there are some individuals who truly changed my outlook on the world for the better. There is some innovating going on, I am better prepared to think even more critically and bring a polished level of professionalism where ever I go.

Cons

Toxic, difficult work environment, like 1200 crabs in a bucket trying to claw their way into owning something important. The office dynamics and politics are suffocating even for those most game for those issues. People are obsessed with getting in there and then are faced with am overwhelming amount of red tape. The time I was there was a complete slog with amazing bright spots of travel and good people. I can't say I would recommend the place in the least bit, but I guess I am glad I was there. I am mostly just glad it's over.

Pros

When I joined the foundation ~ 2 years ago, I hardly understood the impact it would have on my life, both personally and professionally. I have never met a more passionate, kind and humble group of people. I feel privileged and honored to have stood by your side and call you my colleague. Even though my time there was short - I wouldn't trade it for the world! This is one of the best jobs in this world and we are so blessed to be able to be part of this mission. Pros include: 1. Surrounded by some of the most talented and caring people on this planet. 2. Great work life balance with competitive salary and benefits. The benefits are almost too good. 3. Opportunity to work on the the toughest problems in this world. 4. Incredibly humbling to work for Bill and Melinda Gates. They are a huge inspiration to this world. 5. Making this world a better place for many generations to come. 6. CEO, Sue is very inspiring and doing a great job at running the org.

Cons

Overall, the foundation is a phenomenal place. Here are some areas for development. 1. I really wish there were company wide OKRs to be shared x-foundation. The teams / departments felt siloed. 2. Program ELT are very "formal" and it was difficult to connect with them as people. I felt like I needed a PHD in every subject on this planet from an Ivy League institution to even understand them during Org wide All Hands. 3. Instill pay for performance to motivate teams to work better together. 4. Over collaboration: When working on programs / projects, the foundation tends to over collaborate and ensures that feedback from every person and use case is taken into consideration. This makes it difficult to launch systems, processes, etc.