A good company - Research Associate Merck Employee Review

4.0
Jun 12, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good people with a focus on the science, and a can do attitude that get projects from "well can this work?" to a final answer. Also, business decisions made by management are implemented quickly, and efficiently with a view towards practicality and reasonableness. Also, the management team explains the purpose of their decisions and what the expected outcome for the company is intended. Top-to-down communication from management team is, in my experience, unparalleled and I know what was going on in other parts of the company on a day to day basis.

Cons

The demand for data is so driving that many of our project due dates seemed to be due the day before we received the project of which always put a great deal of pressure to produce hard data fast which can and did lead to mistakes which caused delays. Also, though upper management was very good at information distribution, local management wasn't as forthcoming and so often times we knew what was going on in the greater company more than we did in our own site. The last is that unless you have a Ph.D. career advancement opportunities at this company are minimal.

Explore other reviews about Merck

5.0
Jun 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Excellent company to work with.

Cons

No cons encountered so far

4.0
Jun 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great benefits like medical/dentist/vision, pension, stock option, 401k match. Co workers are excellent, pretty good on site symposiums, lot of diversity clubs/activities. Innovation is extremely welcomed. Diversity in research portfolio. AI/ML is heavily invested to make databases more efficient.

Cons

Micro managing, especially within the biologics department, potentially others. Promotions are limited, and pay bump is poor. Company invests too much in buying companies rather than keeping talent - lay offs let go of great talented people. Merck is afraid of investing into exploratory biology and doesn’t take risk - they even admit they would rather see other companies clinical data or R&D data rather than taking a risk. Although it’s slow going in building new software, current databases are slow and needs much improvement. Extremely poor work/life balance.

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