Gates Foundation reviews

I only worked in IT, so I'll limit my comments to that area. The only opportunity to get promoted is if people leave; the CIO told us, "Don't expect upward mobility here." (super-inspirational, right?) IT is run as poorly as any IT organization I've seen, and I've seen many... it's 100% a "don't-make-any-mistakes-or-else" culture, there is absolutely no risk-taking encouraged or allowed. Nothing can get done without multiple meetings. Everything is consensus-driven, which might make sense in other areas of the foundation but doesn't serve IT or our customers around the foundation. Work that I've accomplished in days at other places takes months here. Every bad cliché about an old, slow IT department applies, and the reputation of IT around the foundation is awful. The most frustrating part is that the individual people are talented, and could handle a different culture, but the CIO not only has no vision or ability to drag the culture forward; after five years, he's the reason for the problems. If this were a sports team, performance this bad would result in the head coach being fired.

-What others have written about the politics and bureaucracy are true. The place can sometimes feel like something out of Kafka or Heller. -It's also true that it can be a very cut-throat place, but that varied by team, manager, and director. -And it's also true about the perpetually shifting sands, continual reorgs, and endless Powerpoints. I think one reason for this is the unrealistic goal-setting, at least in some program areas. Departments often set themselves up for failure by setting goals that are nearly impossible and whose achievement they have no control over. -Permanent sense of inadequacy: Despite year after year of positive reviews and 360s there was always a nagging sense of inadequacy. (As one colleague, a Stanford PhD, once put it, "I've never worked anywhere where I felt so dumb.") I felt bad about myself all the time, even when I was winning awards for service. -There is a lot of churn, and very little chance for advancement. But it should be noted that the organization is very up-front about this. They make it clear: No career ladder. And while there are no formal "term limits" for program staff, there's an expectation that you'll cycle back into your field after 3-5 years. -All the policies and tools that enable you to work anytime, anywhere--which is great for flexibility--can, along with all the pressure, make work-life balance difficult. (But some managers and directors do try to mitigate the problem, with some success.)