Prepare to be stuck in your role for YEARS - Senior Clinical Scientist Merck Employee Review

1.0
Jan 19, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The stability of 133-year-old company. Great vacation policy and decent work like balance unless you are on a toxic trial team.

Cons

Extreme stagnation, very little opportunities for advancement unless you look a certain way (not based on merit), disturbingly hierarchical with "support" clinical scientist consistently disregarded and treated as not an integral part of the trial team despite doing the most work. Upper management does a lot of talking but is truly only for the optics when you take a look at what is happening for "lower level" employees within CSSM. Recent mandates for return to work for "office based" employees when all contractors hired to do the same job are fully remote.

Explore other reviews about Merck

5.0
Jun 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Excellent company to work with.

Cons

No cons encountered so far

4.0
Jun 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great benefits like medical/dentist/vision, pension, stock option, 401k match. Co workers are excellent, pretty good on site symposiums, lot of diversity clubs/activities. Innovation is extremely welcomed. Diversity in research portfolio. AI/ML is heavily invested to make databases more efficient.

Cons

Micro managing, especially within the biologics department, potentially others. Promotions are limited, and pay bump is poor. Company invests too much in buying companies rather than keeping talent - lay offs let go of great talented people. Merck is afraid of investing into exploratory biology and doesn’t take risk - they even admit they would rather see other companies clinical data or R&D data rather than taking a risk. Although it’s slow going in building new software, current databases are slow and needs much improvement. Extremely poor work/life balance.

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