Gilead Sciences Reviews

Cons

Seemed hard to progress through the ranks

Cons

Senior management regularly gets in the way of established business process.
Operational decisions require high level senior management involvement which routinely slows down processes.

Cons

Management can be unhelpful - and at times actually harmful and unprofessional. If you get the wrong boss, you will be micromanaged, no matter what level you are at. And this goes all the way down to senior vice presidents arguing with you about font and colour choices in PowerPoint slides.

This is not a joke or an exaggeration.

Managers - especially those who have been in the company for a while - lead by fear, humiliation, and bullying. And in some cases, they "lead" by humblebragging - in the middle of presentations being led by their subordinates.

I have been working for 25 years, and my boss (and I mean BOSS, not manager or leader) was the worst I have ever had, including when I was a minimum wage worker selling cheap suits in college.

Gilead prides itself on being 'flexible' - work gets done quickly and without bureaucracy because there are few SOPs or explicit rules to follow, which can be good. On the other hand, this means that channels to get approval or feedback rely almost completely on precedence. So, if you're a newcomer (read: someone who has less than 5 years in), you will either simply have to guess the "right" way (which is "The Gilead Way") to get something done, or you will be at the mercy of the goodwill of someone who does.

Finally, the internal culture is very Manichean - the "long timers" (who have 10+ years in) and everyone else. The former - leaders will say hi to you, will call you out in meetings, and in some cases invite you to "in group" events at their homes. The latter - leaders will walk by you in the hall way and not even smile at you.

Cons

Certain members of senior management have tyrannically enforced a culture whereby the company’s positive value of following the science is warped to the despotic behavior of excluding those not in a scientist role whenever and wherever possible, by promoting their friends into roles that they are unqualified for, micromanaging project execution, and the ruthless holding back those deserving of promotions in apparent spite. These member of senior management have a plethora of HR complaints against them yet refuse to change their behavior in a meaningful way, apparently because they actually believe they are doing nothing wrong and are very happy with the despot that they’ve created for themselves.

Cons

Low salary, not competitive with cost of living

Cons

Upper management has been around for too long trying to run the company the same as when there were just a handful of people. This leads to micromanagement. A lot of your time will go towards creating presentations to provide info to upper management. They want to be involved in every little thing. Unheard of for a company of its size. Resistant to fresh ideas and changing their way of doing things. No work/life balance which they are quite proud of. Overall culture is terrible. It is extremely hard to get promoted which they are also proud of. Lots of arrogant people especially those who have been there a long time.

Cons

no respect, only look out for higher grade levels, not good at inclusion

Cons

Long hours, integrity, details, good co workers, honesty

Cons

Extremely lean, political, favoritism, work life balance is nonexistent

Cons

Overly bureaucratic
Too many levels to engage to get projects started
Poor planning
Firefighting mentality