Synthetic Genomics Reviews

Pros

The new management team at SGI-DNA is finally making decisions that will position the company for growth and is fixing poor decisions of the past. Its a welcomed change by MOST of the employees who have been there the longest.

Cons

Some of the old culture needs to evolve or die.

Advice to Management

Keep making the difficult decisions and keep leading. We all appreciate it.

Pros

The people I worked with were great, of course they're all gone now.

Cons

Huge hiring push last year only to discover the company had no money to pay for the new program, and failed miserably at raising new funds. Lots of people left good jobs to join SGI, only to be laid off a year later.

Pros

The people, but they are pretty much gone anyways.

Cons

SGI-DNA is the absolute worst environment I have ever been in considering work, Absolutely TOXIC. Degradation of employees, inappropriate work behavior by their "Senior Leadership Team" aka the CEO and all of the sideways people he brought with him from his last biotech "flips.", then they designated the HR person as someone within the leadership team. If you're considering SGI-DNA, you should seriously find ANY other...

Pros

Great co-workers, cool science and great benefits.

Cons

Upper-Management is out of touch with the day-to-day operations

Pros

SGI-DNA just had layoff yesterday. We now can go work somewhere that is good.

Cons

The customers will feel the impact

Advice to Management

Please follow the 4Is

Pros

It's challenging, but at the same time you get to learn things that are gratifying.

Cons

There was little to none ,structure by staff I mean supervisors they seemed like they were not happy with their job, I did pretty much whatever I wanted to do there, but I tried to help the company with a lot of thier problems that they were having on the site, but too many chiefs ,and not enough indians

Advice to Management

Hire honest , hard working , fair men and women and that's all you'll ever need , keep clear of the employees that milk this company and there's a few , trust me I caught them all.

Pros

Smart scientists with an interesting vision for future

Cons

Poor organization. Negative environment and unhappy people in rank and file. No clear path to creating a profitable company with a future. Too many senior managers that are not making decisions to move the company forward.

Advice to Management

Listen to your employees. Remove leaders that look to create positive company culture and a place where people are excited to come to work.

Pros

Used to be (and possibly might still be, maybe) flexible on work schedules, small company so everyone knows each other, frequent interaction with upper management. Interesting opportunities and things to learn if you put in the time to find them. Currently has separate sick days and PTO days, which is very convenient. People within teams are friendly and cooperative with each other.

Cons

Massive upheaval/layoffs recently, major changes in structure that may result in good later down the line but currently just mean things are never where they should be and you spend an hour each day trying to figure out who/what/where something went. Very fluctuating on employee satisfaction, which is currently low (as of Q4 2018). Pretty stingy when it comes to raises (was only 1-2% for most employees in my department...

Advice to Management

Listen to all departments equally, be patient and understanding of employee frustration during the restructure, and try and help when you can.