Amgen reviews

3.8

64% would recommend to a friend

(4,179 total reviews)
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Robert A. Bradway

74% approve of CEO

66% positive business outlook

Amgen has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 4,179 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Amgen employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

4K reviews
3.0
Jan 29, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

+ Everyone in the wet-lab (in particularly the different chemistry and biology team leads) seems passionate about their work and happy to explain the science to interested listeners, even those without a strong background in the relevant science. + Opportunity to learn about the different parts of the drug discovery process at a large pharma company in practice.

Cons

- Dry-lab R&D efforts seem to languish from a lack of clear criteria for adoption -- you're told to work on a thing, and it may or may not work, but even if it does it's unlikely to change how anyone does their work. - Little chance for mentorship unless you happen to have more of a team lead as your manager rather than a people manager. - Company gives very little incentive to keep you around -- seems to be OK with high turnover.

1.0
May 13, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pay is ok, not great, benefits are good, very good 401k match

Cons

Engineering department is EXTREMELY racist. Most leadership members got their positions by default for continuing to work there for 20+ years. They promote their friends, not based on actually being qualified, but because they’re a man, or white, or both. They only apply that actual rules and policies to people that aren’t well liked. Turnover rate is very high because they literally run all of the good talent out the door. Very hostile, toxic, gossipy work environment.

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Amgen Response
5y
We appreciate your feedback and take your concerns very seriously. At Amgen, it is our ambition for all of our teams to embrace our values and our culture of diversity, inclusion, and belonging, and we believe in the power of having diverse teams across the organization, including within the engineering team. We are, however, deeply concerned to hear about your experience. We would like to understand more about your concerns so that we can thoroughly investigate and address them. Please contact Amgen’s Business Conduct Hotline at 1-888-376-5574 or https://amgenbch.tnwreports.com to report your concerns. You may remain anonymous if you wish.
2.0
Aug 13, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1) 401(k). 2) Thousand Oaks is a nice area with great weather. 3) Many colleagues (especially those at Director level or lower) are highly science- and evidence-oriented. 4) Many well-meaning colleagues

Cons

1) Management by process rather than reason and inspiration. This company is led by its lawyers and Microsoft Excel. 2) Upper management that's generally out of touch with what's happening on the ground. 3) Management that prefers to punch and delegate down than take responsibility. 4) Some upper management with toxic attitudes who, despite complaints, are never disciplined. However, don't you dare be anything but perfectly professional if you're not an ED or higher. 5) Leadership that says one thing and does another. For example, the top-down push for "aggressive prioritization" is juxtaposed by assignment of MORE low priority work and MORE metrics/processes. 6) Development that moves along at a snail's pace despite everyone being overworked due to metrics/processes. 7) A Stalinist corporate environment where people are afraid to speak up. 8) (Department-specific) Lack of appreciation for the people doing the real work on the front lines. 9) (Department-specific) Poor overall compensation by industry standards. 10) An inordinate amount of time updating timelines and budgets for management review. 11) Poor work-life balance; you will be hard-pressed to use your vacation time due to the sheer amount of work and fire drills. Everyone is assigned to multiple programs but expected to be 100% on all of them, another indication that the drive for prioritization is nothing more than empty rhetoric. 12) A deluge of FAKE reviews on Glassdoor via third-party astroturfers to combat downward trajectory in rating. These end up burying the legitimate reviews. Not out of the ordinary, but Amgen is one of the few companies that has hired a PR company to combat negative perceptions on Glassdoor. That should tell you something.

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Amgen Response
5y
We appreciate your review, value your feedback, and we take these concerns very seriously. While you have provided a great deal of detail, if there is anything additional that you would like to share about your experience, please contact our talentacquisitioninquiries@amgen.com. It is our sincere goal to prevent similar feelings in the future, and reviews are instrumental in our ability to implement change. Thank you for taking the time to bring these concerns to our attention.
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