I recently departed from Bruker, after working for them for nearly two decades. During my time there, I saw my responsibilities grow exponentially while my salary remained stagnant. I went from servicing one small division in the US, to servicing several divisions of Bruker on a global scale, and during this time I received only one small promotion early on in my career. Any attempts to ask for another promotion as the years went by, or to have my title updated so it reflected what I was doing for the company and my actual responsibilities went ignored. I was paid so poorly that when Massachusetts passed the Pay Equity Law in 2018, my salary was one of several in the company that needed to be increased. I was made to feel like this was extremely gracious of the company, when in actuality I was underpaid for years, and was still making the bare minimum they could legally get away with paying me.
Company culture is another spot where Bruker fails. Sexism is rampant, particularly in upper management where managers and VPs are 90-95% males. I have sat and watched while men receive promotions and acknowledgement while women stagnate in their positions for years.
Bruker's attitudes towards harassment in the workplace are also terrible. I myself was the subject of a pretty serious incident of sexual harassment years back, and the perpetrator (who admitted to his actions) was given a slap on the wrist, and then awarded Employee of the Year a few years later. When I brought this to both the company president, and HR's attention, I was told that they had zero protocols in place to assure that people who committed harassment in the workplace were ineligible for winning awards. They were apologetic, but his reward was not rescinded. I also know that other women who worked for Bruker were subjected to even worse harassment than I was, and the punishment for the perpetrators was the same: a slap on the wrist. Bruker does not care about keeping people safe in the work place.
You're probably wondering why I stayed with the company for so long. This was simply because I had a certain amount of flexibility due to having a decent manager for a few years, and it was simply more convenient to stay. I left as soon as a decent opportunity presented itself.
This is a company that does not care how hard you work, or about what is best for you and your career. This is a company that will squeeze every bit of work out of you that it can, and then replace you with whoever else comes along.
