Toxic management, negative work culture, and huge lack of DE&I initiatives. - Operations Advarra Employee Review

1.0
Apr 26, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Advarra offers remote jobs so the work-life balance is good. Good training and long ramp-up period (can be up to 6 months of training before full autonomous). Wellness benefit of $500 p/year, health insurance, 401k matching.

Cons

Main Cons: - Management at Advarra is toxic. They are all talk and no action. Advarra values its employees from the top down, prioritizing the needs of ELTs and high-level managers over the needs/feedback of their direct reports. - Advarra offers an annual "anonymous" employee survey for company-wide feedback. This survey is NOT anonymous - managers with 5 or more direct reports see their direct reports' answers "anonymously," but with only 5 people on a team, it is very easy to see who wrote what. - HR totes pay transparency but refuses to share pay bands with employees. This is because they underpay everyone and there are huge pay disparities within teams. - The work is highly repetitive and there is very little career pathing (although HR will tell you there is). Get ready to wait 2+ years for a promotion, even if you excel on your team. Very little value is placed on high performance (again, HR will say otherwise, but no action is taken). - There is no real action being taken to improve Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The DE&I committee is constantly at a standstill because HR leaders and ELTs say no to every initiative for fear that Advarra is "not ready" and they don't want to make people "uncomfortable." Education on white fragility would be beneficial for all managers and ELTs. - Advarra is based out of Maryland, with many employees in Ohio. They pay based on the cost of living in those states... so if you live in a city with a higher cost of living than Cincinnati or Columbus, Maryland be prepared to get underpaid.

Explore other reviews about Advarra

5.0
Apr 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great work life balance, remote and nice people

Cons

The pay wasn't very much

1.0
Jun 29, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The actual work can be fun but everything else ruins it.

Cons

Condescending management and leadership. They constantly change their minds every day; one day they will want something done one way, the next something completely different and be condescending acting like you should read their minds. Upper management is very much into micromanaging. The company culture is toxic. And the company is basically the next thing to failing. Private Equity will likely cash in on their debt at some point and shut it down. Non stop unannounced layoffs.

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