Pros
The perks are pretty good, Bupa healthcare and Spill therapy (although we wouldn't need Spill if the underlying issues were fixed), gym membership, there's a personal development budget and a snack budget. Coffee morning on Thursday with the whole company. The lab team is wonderful to manage and all friendly lovely people. The Ops team are also great and always willing to help if you need them. The site is good with a cafe and on the top floor so great views and balconies. There's a lot of freedom and no micromanagement. You can pick which shifts you work to an extent. It was very good at at the start. You get a desk and to pick what laptop you want as your work laptop within a budget.
Cons
There may be a development budget but no one is actually progressed and new hires are hired instead of promoting current staff. If you're doing an IBMS portfolio don't expect to get promoted to BMS when you finish. The senior management is secretive and tend not to be as supportive as they could be, you'll always be wrong and if you give less than a 120% you'll be told you're disengaged. Definitely egos involved unfortunately, unless you have a PhD you won't be taken seriously. You'll never know about anything until the last minute including when staff are being let go or if there's a senior being hired above you. There's no humanity and very little appreciation from your direct managers. You're expected to do the jobs of three people and work weekends and Bank Holidays with no compensation (money or time in lieu), if you have more than three weekends off in a row you'll be pulled up on it. There's no overtime pay for the lab manager position, the salary covers it apparently. There's no hybrid or home working unless you're on the commercial side. There is very little guidance or support, partly because no one has that much experience, for me it wasn't too great as it lacked structure and I need some structure. It's a typical start up environment (except less flexible) I guess, hard if you've come from the NHS/UKHSA/other more established labs. Until the company decides to fully finish one project there won't be any money coming in apart from the dwindling Covid tests which makes the future slightly questionable. Morale is at an all time low due to the lack of work and direction. Promises are made and then not delivered. There's also no HR, HR is your direct manager. Staff aren't appreciated at all. Personally I now have major imposter syndrome, anxiety and borderline depression as a result of this job which will take me a while to recover from even though I tried multiple times asking for help and support. Be expected to give literal blood, sweat, tears and any other sample type for validation purposes of the assays. They don't want to pay for bio bank samples. No references given.