Message from senior scientist and early member - Please read before joining
Pros
I was an early team member of Hyperfine since we were still in the incubator 4Catalyzer. Please take a look at my thoughts about the company before considering a position at Hyperfine. As one of the team members who made the technology a reality, it hurts me that I have to rate our company at 1 star. I can't, in good conscience, let others get sucked into the same situation as me. Here are my pros: 1. Amazing technology. The fact that MRI can now be portable is truly unbelievable. 2. Intelligent and friendly people. The scientists at Hyperfine are brilliant minds in the field. 3. Good compensation, even though it seems to be getting worse. When we were still in the incubator 4Catalyzer, the total compensation and benefits were great - competitive salary, good medical insurance, and other expenses that were paid for. The current compensation is still competitive, but it seems to be dwindling each quarter. For example, the HRA was taken away with no explanation, causing a ~$4000 decrease in pay on average.
Cons
1. Limited and decreasing budget. The limited budget has become the biggest challenge for us to do any technical work. Every purchase, even as small as $5, is monitored and scrutinized by the accounting team. This causes delays in our development work, which is crucial if we want to increase our sales and better our patient outcomes. In addition, many hires in the pipeline are halted because of budget cuts. The engineers in my team were already working more than 50 hours a week on average, and this puts even more strain on everybody. 2. Minimal to no visa/immigration support. We used to support H1B and O visa for our team, but that is going away. The leadership team has no immigrants, which makes them very insensitive to the difficulty of immigrant employees. Currently, Hyperfine selectively sponsors H1B application and renewal, but only tells the employee at the last minute. As a result, the employee has no choice but to stay with the company for another year. This might not be an issue if you're a citizen, but I can't imagine what the immigrant colleagues must be going through. 3. Little transparency from the leadership team. Our company is not doing great financially because our revenue is not enough to be self-sufficient. Everyone knows that and feels it in the budget cuts that the leadership mandates. However, the leadership offers no guidance of how they plan to resolve this or what's going to happen next. As a result, many of us are working in panic mode because we expect the worst. 4. Unfair company treatment with no explanation At this time (Feb 2022), our 2021 bonus has not been detailed, let alone sent out. The plan has been pushed for a couple of times already. What's infuriating is that the CEO has received $1.5 million for his bonus package (public information). There has been no explanation. This happened for our HRA cut and a few other things. 5. (Unsure) Is Hyperfine a product looking for a market? I'm putting this last because I don't know if this is 100% true. We have amazing technology, but it's not selling. Are we a product that's looking for a market? The business outlook might not be as good as what our management claims. I guess we'll have to wait and see.