GENEWIZ Reviews

The specific department I worked in was an absolute disaster and treated the lab technicians horribly. You are expected to work overtime every single day. After working a 50+ hour week they will then ask you to come in on a Saturday. Throughout the day you are being asked to juggle an overwhelming amount of tasks as well as help train whoever is new (which is inevitable given the high turnaround times). You are never shown appreciation or gratitude for the time you dedicate there. I remember one day we had a team meeting where we were told a specific set of tasks needed to be done before we were allowed to leave for that night. A coworker of mine raised her hand and asked which of these tasks could possibly be left until the next day- given the fact that the shift that came in at 1 pm had been staying until close to 1 in the morning. My manager shrugged and didn't respond- Thats the day I decided to look for a different job. The company works its employees into the ground so that they quit in a year or two, that way they never have to give out raises- instead they can just hire another fresh out of college grad/ someone desperate who doesn't know any better. Horrible ethics and really uncomfortable and awkward work environment. I felt like I was walking on eggshells all day.

The pay compared to competitive markets. Satellite labs all pay the same, so competitive salaries in North Carolina put a peer in San Francisco a pretty severe disadvantage. They pay about 60% of what you can get elsewhere in the big biotech markets. The turnover is insane when it comes to lab workers. All of the pressure is laid on bench workers, so 90% are gone within two years, or at least transferred to other departments. So the truly important work at the company ends up being done by fresh hires thrown into the fire, while direct managers are left to train, assist in bench work, put out fires of customers angry that their data is unreliable, and actually manage all at the same time. The "experts" here are few and far between. Their days of Genewiz's core business, Sanger Sequencing, are numbered. For now, it's still the most economical, but it will fall away as NGS grows cheaper/more efficient. Finally, the leadership, or lack thereof. Most managers are just bench workers that for some reason stayed long enough to be repeatedly promoted, and lack much in the way of true management training. The people making the big decisions are all over the place. Constantly coming up with new ideas, shifting long term goals sometimes from month to month, and executing actions with too little thought. The CEO was recently replaced, so perhaps there's hope there.