Pros
- Great co-workers
- Amazing support from lab supervisors, depending on the lab you're in
- Decent starting point if you're looking to get your foot into the job market
- Pretty good support for medical care
- Depending on the team, some managers are actually really supportive. They try to make sure that your experience there is as smooth as possible, especially if you need accommodations
Kontras
- Terrible upper management. Communication is trickle-down. Expect news to be distributed through hearsay.
- Terrible building upkeep in general. When I worked there, there was always something going on - old tools, broken machines, moldy walls. They need to fix those broken pipettes and actually fix their machines for once
- Ridiculous expectations. They want maximum output with minimum everything. Expect doing 2-3 people's worth of jobs in one go.
- Stagnancy. You won't learn very much after the 3rd-6th month benchmark. Once you get the general gist of the labs, my advice is to leave immediately. It's more of a rote, factory-like position than it is actually a proper skill-job. If you're willing to wait for a couple of years for additional training, good for you. However, keep in mind that this is randomized. I've seen newcomers who've been there for 6 months get trained in more skills than someone who's been there for 2 years. Either you proactively ask for new skills to be learned or you pray to the gods that they'll pass you something new. I've actually seen some people ask to learn for new skills and they were turned down outright because "they are needed in that position". That tells you something.
- Just get ready to overtime. No matter what the company says, finishing your tasks is near impossible if you're not overtiming. Otherwise, if you don't want to overtime, just leave. The good thing is, they at least compensate you for overtiming