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Gates Foundation

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Programmatic role - Anonymous employee Gates Foundation Employee Review

3.0
Jul 1, 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Strong benefits (12 weeks maternity/paternity leave + ability to add vacation, low co-pay, wide coverage); compensation is average and uneven but decent enough; nice campus; many learning opportunities and ability to be creative and risk-taking about solving big problems; great colleagues; options to work remotely with flexible hours

Cons

Meeting heavy; poor management (indecisive, churning around ideas without concrete actions; bullying behavior goes unaddressed); little investment in staff and little career growth with some teams having an outright "no promotions" policy; little value for institutional knowledge but without strong IT-related knowledge management systems so a lot of information walks out the door when staff/consultants leave; constant focus on strategy refreshes/reviews which pull staff from primary work; unsupportive HR (or rather HR is clearly there to protect the company rather than the staff); at the moment, there has been a crack-down on hiring consultants--that combined with a lean staffing model and too few junior staff, burn out is high and quality is going down as employees are stretched beyond capacity and can't devote enought time to any one thing; highly stressful environment; great values on paper but they don't translate toward staff

Explore other reviews about Gates Foundation

5.0
Apr 24, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Everyone is aligned to the mission. Fantastic benefits.

Cons

These could be pros for some but travel and ambiguity are things to deal with

3.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Mission-based work Diverse, passionate employee base Healthcare benefit Parental leave and support Unlimited PTO

Cons

Poor work-life balance Perfectionist culture Unreasonable expectations with working hours High levels of burnout Retaliation for setting boundaries with working hours Culture resistant to prioritization of work

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