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Gates Foundation

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Gates Foundation reviews

3.7

63% would recommend to a friend

(561 total reviews)
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Mark Suzman

81% approve of CEO

70% positive business outlook

Gates Foundation has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 561 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Gates Foundation employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Nonprofit & NGO industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

561 reviews
1.0
Feb 16, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Adding BMGF name to your resume Beautiful campus Competitive pay and benefits

Cons

Subject matter experts with no previous people-managing experience consistently given supervisory roles over teams. This lack of leadership experience (and yes folks, leading is different than managing) coupled with the elitist, politically deceitful and purposeful back-stabbing of colleagues, team-members and consultants results in a perfect-storm of toxicity and dehumanizing behavior. Shamefully, you'll find this behavior not only tolerated, but rewarded and enabled at the cost of rapid mass exodus from toxic teams. Is upper management really unable to discern that the problem is the so-called leader placed over these teams? Witnessing borderline abusive and demoralizing approaches with employees, contingent workers(who truly are treated as sub-human at times) and consultants with no accountability, for years now, is stomach-churning, at best. HR team is liken to the foundation's personal mafia. Do NOT engage this department unless you are prepared to be targeted next. Sadly, our team has watched multiple highly skilled, accomplished, capable team members fall wayside to their procedure "siding with upper management to create 'performance issues' for employees who seek their guidance or bring legitimate grievances to their attention". Not safe! The revolving doors in teams across the foundation are testament to this. The amazing work-life balance others report is solely dependent upon the team you land in and the manager you have. For many, expect to work 60+ hours, with direction to report anything over 40 hours as overtime, then prepare to defend your "level of efficiency" as a thank-you for your hard work. If you are seeking employment here, be sure to conduct your due-diligence about the specific reputation, practices, and managing principles of your potential team. This may make or break your entire experience.

2.0
Feb 12, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay, the quality of the colleagues, the opportunity to fund important work

Cons

Poor leadership, lack of respect for staff, too much focus on 'strategy' and what people in Seattle without deep technical expertise think, not enough value placed on evidence, experience, technical quality, internal relationships and relationships with governments and partners

3.0
Oct 27, 2015

Bad management

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good installations, good benefits if you are a full time employee.

Cons

It was a good place to work a couple years ago, the changes they went through kill the soul of this place

Viewing 73 - 75 of 561 Reviews

Glassdoor has 699 Gates Foundation reviews submitted anonymously by Gates Foundation employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Gates Foundation is right for you.