Illumina Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Illumina as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Interesting technology, great business "space" to be in
Lots of smart people as worker-bees
Awesome campus
good place for someone who in the scientific part of the biz

Cons – My comments mirror many of the others....this company spends its money on the people who are developing the technology - the chemical, genetic end of the house is difficult to staff, and Illumiina works hard to find and attract talent to that area
BUT
the rest of the business suffers as a result. Business process infrastructure and systems are old; documentation is bloated, poorly managed, delivery of information is neither nimble nor scaleable. Current systems - like SalesForce - are so poorly implemented their use is avoided. Software is old and cobbled. There is little project managment (ya know, a schedule, critical path, risks, a goal..?), and I was a little amazed at the arrogance of some people who insist on ignoring best practices..

Advice to Senior Management – This place needs a PMO office yesterday. Perhaps its acquistion by Roche will help push it into reality. My other advice would be to reconsider the grandfathered position bestowed on staff. The place uses a lot of contract workers. Good contract talent seems to be sacraficed and less productive staff remains. Bad for long-term health of the org. (See: teacher's union; tenure).

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

Former Employee – worked at Illumina as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Illumina is doing very interesting leading edge work in gene sequencing. Some very smart people here, doing very cool work. Pace is very fast, change is rapid in many areas. The folks I worked with were looking for better ways to do things. On-site cafeteria is pretty good too.

Cons – There are some political battles and defense of territories. It was clear some struggles had been going on for quite some time and had become entrenched. It's a big company, with all the big company overhead and the burden of hide-bound procedures.

Advice to Senior Management – Look for ways to get people's eyes on the task at hand, rather than on the political territory. Not all teams are on the same page regarding changes to methodology... better buy-in and more clarity about "here's where we're going" would help.

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 for less than a year

Pros – - developers are used to make new software, not maintenance of existing systems
- lots of interesting projects in the bio-tech industry
- fun place to work.
- get to work with the latest software technologies

Cons – - not a software company. It's a hardware company first.
- they don't have enough testers, or designers

Advice to Senior Management – - hire more testers and designers

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 for more than 3 years

Pros – Bleeding edge technology in a field that has huge growth potential and the company is the market leader. Work on something that will actually impact human health and understanding.

The senior management has a proven record of guiding the company through many strategic decisions and is still positioned really well in the market.

Campus is amazing, possibly the best in San Diego (beach volleyball, basketball, soccer, gym, amphitheater, koi ponds, cafe, Starbucks) and is being expanded with even more amenities.

Software is becoming a key part of the overall strategy and there are tons of interesting projects and opportunities. Great place for talented software engineers. Lots of interesting "Big Data" problems that don't involve 140 character messages...

Cons – As most companies that have such extreme growth there are plenty of growing pains, but there are also plenty of opportunities. Departments that are cost centers don't get enough support, but this is not unusual.

Layoff late in 2011 probably sparked more negative reviews than the company deserves. I've personally never been approached for weekend work, again this could be different in other departments, but this is 1600+ person company.

Internal systems are sub-par and under-staffed.

Advice to Senior Management – Re-invest in your employees and internal systems for the next 10 years...

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 3 years

Pros – Fast pace and cutting edge technology

Cons – Lack of teamwork, poor management leadership and guidance, does not promote work-life balance, and a CYA environment

Advice to Senior Management – Either develop or hire personnel in middle management

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

Pros – Hot technology, hands down leader in the market right now. Plenty of opportunity to learn new things. Revenue and cash flow have been good, and the company now has some weight to throw around. This means good facilities, infrastructure, growth. Good upward mobility and perks, but only for certain departments (Sales and Marketing are definitely living it up here). Company offers a preferred stock plan, good benefits overall.

Cons – 1. You really need to be ready to drink the proverbial Cool Aid here and show maximum enthusiasm for whatever that gets put forward as a product, policy, or initiative. If you don't - you're not a team player and your career outlook will suffer greatly. And the middle management is the worst in this respect. Not all, but way too many are caught up in this cheer-leading as a way to hide their own deficiencies.
2. The company is extremely disorganized! It drives you crazy, because this is what's causing the overwhelming work load that others here have mentioned. Sure, the fast evolving technology/market will throw curve balls at you all the time, but the management treats this as something to be proud of (ala 'we like it this way because it makes us innovative and flexible') rather than trying to organize things a little bit better. But who cares about inefficiencies when you've got no competition, right?
 3. Poor access to information about company's products, both released and in-development. Combined with really fast product turnarounds, this means you're always frantically looking for the most up to date info. Unlike points 1 and 2, this is something the management has tried to address, but so far with limited success.

Advice to Senior Management – Come down from the clouds

Former Employee – worked at Illumina full-time

Pros – great location in San Diego. Brand new campus with good facilities. Comfortable working hours and good company culture.

Cons – Not much vertical movement within the company. Often times people are brought in from the outside instead of promoting people from inside.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Illumina full-time

Pros – Compensation packages are good. Buildings are amazing. Events are fun. Plenty of resources. People are brilliant. Management is great.

Cons – None that I can think of.

Advice to Senior Management – None.

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 – Very innovative company and very open -- both physically and philosophically. They really want to be the leading provider of solutions that advance genetics and health.

Cons – There isn't a lot of downside to this company.

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 – 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