strong science and reputation, but systemic issues hurt individual contributors
Pros
- generally good funding - Allen Institute has a whole system to get government grants and also has a good endowment - This means a decent salary for scientist positions relative to academia, although relatively poor relative to industry - They have decent benefits like 401k matching and $120 / month to spend on "wellness" - Don't have to spend as much time applying for grants as you would in academia - science within institute is very collaborative - Within the institute, there is a lot of opportunity for internal collaborations and networking as people interact much more through the "team science" model. - good position for external collaborations - For neuroscience, the Allen Institute is relatively well known. Since people don't really know internal structure, they often perceive scientists as similar to PIs. This leads to more respect externally. - There are lots of seminars by various scientific guests from all over the world. - open science - Historically, the Allen Institute has been committed to sharing data openly, setting up various open data formats and structures to do this. This does really appeal to me. - some really wonderful and passionate people - Many people here are genuinely kind, care about others, and care about advancing science for humanity and not just to drive their own career.
Cons
- team science - As great as it is for collaborations, it can also feel very corporate. - Scientists end up being stuck in various office politics within team and across teams to do their project - Collaborations often happen across teams rather than individuals, which makes people feel more anonymous. It's harder to build relationships across levels. Vivarium staff, RAs, and Scientists each have their own social cliques without much intermingling. - Due to the team nature, can often feel like a (replaceable) cog in a machine. It is harder to get recognition for your contributions. - Office can feel too connected for my introvert self. On an average day, I end up having conversations with about a dozen people. - Lots of cross-team collaborations means sitting in a lot of large meetings, which can get tiring. - leadership has all the power - All promotions and raises go through the relevant institute director for approval. They can and do deny promotions based on favoritism. - HR must approve every job position posted. It takes months to get more people hired on your team. - No way to provide effective feedback on policies. Leadership will pretend to listen then justify why they don't change anything. - There is constant restructuring every few years, which can mean layoffs or changes in project direction with only a few weeks warning. - managers highly variable - Relevant scientific expertise in managers is quite mixed (some great, others not). - Some managers are really supportive in research, growth, and life. Other managers push their reports to work 6 days a week and 12 hour days collecting data. Some others are distant and provide no guidance. - don't expect benefits of academia - There is not much opportunity for mentoring students as a postdoc or teaching classes. - It very much feels like a 9-5 job with inflexible PTO. Not even all holidays are guaranteed. - Authorship on papers and leading projects is not guaranteed and depends on office politics. (RAs often not even authors on papers they collected data for.) - Not much talks (or collaborations) outside of biology - Emphasis on development of large pipelines over basic science - heavy union busting - Allen Institute employees are currently in the process of forming a union across all non-management titles and sub-institutes. However, management has reacted very poorly, highlighting their priorities. Here I'll document all their actions. (They of course have official excuses for all of the below actions, but together they do highlight the union busting happening.) - They've hired lawyers from Davis Wright Tremaine (DWT) for union busting as soon as campaign was launched. - Presumably with help of these lawyers, they've drafted a misleading FAQ that misrepresents the internally led union effort as a third party and frames various anti-union talking points. - They have held specifically anti-union trainings for managers led by DWT. - Leadership is currently conducting an "All In" campaign that "highlights the existing benefits". Each week or two, they put up a new poster in all the elevators about how great our current conditions are, often with quotes from directors. - HR has tried to remove union posters from breakrooms and shame union organizers from talking to coworkers about unions during breaks (these acts of organizing are legally protected by NLRB) - There are leadership-led "engagement focus groups" to give the appearance of listening to employee concerns, but without implementing the systematic changes that a union would bring to the workplace.
