Illumina Reviews

I worked at Illumina

Pros – Great team to work with.

Cons – Closed down great team without good reason.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Illumina full-time

Pros – - The iCafe was nice
- Many good colleauges (vast majority of them have walked btw)
- Arguably an industry leader for this field
- Anywhere else you will go you will be better treated by comparison

Cons – I was an employee who had much exposure to Illumina worldwide and got to know the ins and outs of the organization down to a T. As a result, the more I learned and developed my skills, the more I fell into the trap of what is now known as the horrible company company politics that plague this organization. This company does not praise innovation nor does it appreciate any attempts at process improvements. Blatant politics aside, the reason for this is mostly because process improvements will point out many reduncies that are in the form of a heavy management structure and outdated procedures, and trust me they have a lot to lose by having this pointed out.

Middle-management in my experience proved to be very hyper-political, extremely incompetent, unreasonably demanding, antagonistic, and blame-oriented. It was worse in the overseas offices, with very notable HR issues with management that any normal publicly traded company would fix right away. Company goes so far as to drive out unwanted “outsiders” in very unethical ways with methods not at all based on evaulating an employee's performance. This was reported to upper management but with no avail. So much for the official “openness” policy, as me being open to management about these kinds of happenings with me and my team led to worse treatment and no guidance or accountability on their part.

Overall and globally I will never give Illumina a good endorsement as a place to work and wouldn’t even wish that environment to someone I disliked, as this place was intolerable and torture to work in. I personally had commendations on my record and received extra compensation only in the form of the occasional “atta boy,” at the cost of sacrificing my personal life and time at all hours of the day/night/weekend/holidays. More often then not, I was very rudely and unprofessionally treated. Communications in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and bolded DEMANDING why you did not deliver “x” item yet are the norm here…never mind keeping people in the loop, being short on resources, working 12+ hour days, being stretched too thin, as that does not matter here to the antagonistic management and sales groups. Company saves money in the form of keeping a lean staff, yet throws over the top parties at headquarters, pays tens of millions to a very un-involved and ethically bankrupt upper management team. Let’s not forget the huge margins on the products and services, as that is no secret. Anything other than a "yessa yessa" at all hours of the day and or night (literally I would get calls in the middle of the night) will get you in hot water.

To put it in perspective for any future prospective bright eyed and bushy tailed workers who are considering Illumina as a place to work: You will see process improvement, resource allocation, reward/incentives for good work and overall respect for employees about as often as you would see a unicorn. Stay away because despite the fact that this place experienced fast growth, the greed and lack of professional leadership of the organization is what is shining through now internally and externally, and it vastly overshadows its previous “pioneering” reputation.

Turnover rate is the highest I have ever seen in my career. The only department that gets rewarded on a consistent basis is sales. In all other departments people are treated like objects that are to be used to make a quota and nothing more.

Advice to Senior Management – To executive management: Your lack of ability to properly lead an organization has created an unbearable work environment and as a result you are driving away/have ousted most of your competent employees. If you have any semblance of perception and care half as much as I did about this organization, you will seriously revamp mid to upper management and actually allocate resources to the departments that need it, instead of say…throwing gaudy Christmas parties at “trendy” hotels or sending a sales team to the Caribbean for teambuilding while other departments who support such endeavors with 12+ hour workdays are only told by toxic managers that they are lucky to be working (FYI, this misallocation of incentives was the only form of efficient global cohesion I saw with this company).

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Illumina

Pros – Excellent technology
Leader on the market

Cons – -very toxic environment !!!!!!!!!
-no salary reviews( if ou don't count 1-2%)
-lower management needs improvement immediately

Advice to Senior Management – -read employee's reviews

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Illumina

Pros – The people
The technology
The vacation policy

Cons – Very political
Competitive when we should be cooperating
Egos at the top

Advice to Senior Management – Cull the egos from the herd

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Illumina

Pros – Working with new technology and a few interesting people.
Good personal time off system.
Holiday events and happy hours are fantastic.

Cons – Recruitments, selections and promotions are based on internal political
agenda, for example hiring friends to guarantee personal loyalty at the expense of other
highly performing and more-qualified employees.

Managers believe that the more people they manage and the
bigger the budget, the higher the chance that they will be promoted. This results in raging
battles around budgets, strategies and operations.

There are many management layers in the organization, thus,
hindering communication and resulting in slower execution.

Muted level of commitment and enthusiasm teams. Even
successful results cannot be shared and celebrated due to animosity and internal negative
competition.

There is a high rate of absenteeism and a high employee
turnover rate.

Advice to Senior Management – To quote Gandhi: "Be the change you want to see.” The most powerful leaders are almost
always the role models for the change they seek. If the CEO practices bad politics, no
amount of training or coaching will change the management team.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Illumina

Pros – If you like these things then this company is for you.
Fast paced
Need to adapt quickly
Embrace constant change
Good benefits
Great co-workers

In my experience:
Managers provide guidance
Senior Managers provide updates regarding company strategy

Cons – Yearly raises not up to par with workload
Sales are rewarded more then any other branch.

Advice to Senior Management – If people are working hard all year, please allow all branches to have one meeting for 2-3 days to build relationships.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Illumina

Pros – Empowerment
Fast-paced, can-do attitude prevails
Supportive management
Authority and accountability pushed down to low levels
Beautiful facilities
Respect for all employees

Cons – Work-life balance favors work, difficult to take a vacation
No offices, even the CEO is in a cube. Management privacy is difficult

Advice to Senior Management – Invest in stronger IT systems and IT staff to support general operations. Infrastructure is too frail to support growth. Staff too junior to develop robust solutions

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Illumina

Pros – One consistent thing I have read in these reviews that is very true is that this place is very fast paced. This forces you to prioritize and will prepare you very well for any other organization (as no one lasts long here, whether it be through their own free will or the company's)

Cons – No respect and no work life balance. Sacrifice of weekends and evenings is consistently not just expected, but required (yes you read that correctly). Poorest quality management I have seen in all my years as a working professional, as there is zero reward for excellent work, hard work, and effort. Only the most blatant of kissing up will get you anywhere here, and it is very sad to see this go on right in front of you. This is due to the very cutthroat and often immature politics that plague this organization.

Very blame ridden environment, with lots of blame passed between departments and not very much inter-department collaboration.

Company often times appears to refuse to get affairs in order, with everyone scrambling at the last minute due to poor execution and bad leadership, and very unclear direction.

Advice to Senior Management – Let Roche come in and take over. It would be better for your employees, customers, and the scientific community in general

You've exploited and ruined this company, and you should be held accountable

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Illumina

Pros – Highly capable co-workers that strive to meet extremely aggressive project goals and deadlines.
Before Oct 25, 2011 there was a solid cooperative environment with many people doing everything they can to help each other. There was a fair amount of in-fighting between groups over responsibilities, but it was getting better.

Cons – Terrible morale, which simply gets worse every week. Since Oct. 25, 2011, much of the development team has no incentive to do more than the bare minimum. Many former employees who have been recently forced to leave due to no desire to re-locate, have since found jobs elsewhere. This is encouraging those still working for the company to seek opportunities elsewhere.
There is a large rift between the bulk of employees and senior management. Senior management seems oblivious to the problem or is simply too inept to address and improve it.
Major favoritism with respect to promotions. Some groups see its team members promoted annually; others see team members go 3 years without a promotion.
People resources are a hot commodity. A workforce that was lean before the RIF in October is now starving for resources on projects that are making the company money or will be doing so within the next year.
Company seems to never provide enough instruments to its own departments to enable proper development and timelines.

Advice to Senior Management – Fire some VP's and your chief medical officer. It should be obvious that when you fire 10% of your workforce that you should fire some of your most highly paid and under-performing upper management! Try setting aside enough money for next year to meet VCP funding for your employees. It may go a long way to reducing employee turnover.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Illumina

Pros – Although the benefits and perks at Illumina are amazing it's the the employees at Illumina that keeps the company strong. The yoga/gym/recreation on site and the monthly happy hours / half yearly sponsored corporate parties allow us to network with so many individuals from various pars of the company. Illumina does know how to care of its own. The salary is pretty competitive with stock options, bonus, raise, etc.

You learn a lot of valuable skills at Illumina in such a small amount of time. They expect you to hit the ground running. 1 or 2 years at Illumina is the equivalent of 3-5 years at a regular company.

Cons – When I came on board with Illumina, I was hired specifically more certain skill sets. I have seen myself and others included have their positions radically evolve into something completely different. Regardless of whether or not you are satisfied with the change. Projects and priorities could shift instantly, leaving things a bit chaotic at the office.

Illumina's core values don't seem to align with your personal goals and end of year review, which tends to lower your raise/bonus. Whether this is on purpose or not I leave that to the employee.
There seemed to be a disconnect in communication and goals between upper/middle management and rest of the teams.

Advancement and movement across the organization was difficult and hard get approval of for some employees. No structure was in place to show you a path to becoming a senior person on the team or move into a manager or assistant director role.

Although Illumina does hire outstanding employees, there seemed to be a lack of basic MS skill sets or analytics for some of the employe thereby having no understanding of their data the to create presentations critical for senior management on how their business line is doing.

Turnover is quite high. The burnout and level that you are running at Illumina can be exciting but also stressful.

Advice to Senior Management – Structured and concise path for growing and advancing to the next level at our position.
Find a way to keep top talented employees from turning over after several years. Turnover is quite high.