Great company, but wouldn't recommend the Durham site - Associate Specialist, Quality Assurance Merck Employee Review

2.0
Dec 22, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401k)

Cons

Competitive, employees often stab each other in the back to receive promotions. Employees are promoted based on their networking skills rather than quality of work and years of experience. Quantity is more important than quality of work. High turnover rate due to subpar salaries and poor employee moral. Atmosphere within Quality department is not friendly. Department is not diverse. Poor balance of work life and social life.

Explore other reviews about Merck

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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