SQZ Biotech Reviews

4.1

66% would recommend to a friend

(48 total reviews)
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Armon Sharei

71% approve of CEO

58% positive business outlook

SQZ Biotech has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 48 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The SQZ Biotech employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

48 reviews
2.0
18 Jan 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Young group of scientists, lively fun atmosphere, sense of camaraderie (especially in the lab), scientists and RAs thrive to deliver perfect results. Happy hours are fun to unwind.

Cons

Expectations for performance is high which is fine if you also value that employees have family and a life outside of work. If you are a workaholic who loves to hang out with colleagues even after work and weekends then this the the perfect place for you. However, if you are someone who likes to unhook from work and still expects to be valued or considered for promotions, forget about it. CEO is obstinate about company goals and the pressure trickles down to the RA level. CEO promises too much to investors and the burden falls on the lab folks to perform on the spur experiments to deliver on the promise.

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SQZ Biotech Response
5y
Our mission is ambitious and can be personal for many of us - I myself am a cancer survivor. We are all passionate about the work we’re doing and the potential impact we could make. You are correct that we do have high expectations for our employees; we make a concerted effort to hire the best talent to help us meet our goal of getting our therapies to patients in need. That being said, high expectations should not, and does not, equate to minimal work/life balance. We have all experienced firsthand some of the long nights that come along with major milestone development (IPO, IND filing), however we believe it is also important for all of us to make time for family, friends, and our interests outside of work. We recently implemented an accrued paid time off program that is designed to ensure employees are fully utilizing their time off. Our various feedback mechanisms (outreach from the People Team, management Q&As, town halls, etc.) are critical to enabling our continued evolution and we will continue to listen and identify appropriate actions in response to comments or suggestions we receive. Thanks for your feedback, we wish you well, and appreciate the contributions you made during your time at SQZ. -Armon, CEO & Co-Founder
1.0
17 Dec 2017

Poor upper management creates chaos

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-Smart coworkers who work very hard -unlimited vacation and sick days -free snacks and regular lunches -nice working space -cool technology with many applications

Cons

-bad upper management -you won’t get to use your unlimited vacation because there is always an emergency to deal with -constant chaos in research due to unrealistic scientific goals and poor leadership -scientists judged based on whether they produce the data upper management wants regardless of scientific accuracy -it appears that female scientists are not treated the same as their male counterparts

2.0
29 Nov 2017

Bad management okay culture

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Unlimited vacation - Nice and smart co-workers - Great snacks

Cons

- No work life balance - Needs to play the game to be recognized - No flexibility in ideas and/or experiments to test

Viewing 1 - 3 of 48 Reviews

Glassdoor has 55 SQZ Biotech reviews submitted anonymously by SQZ Biotech employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if SQZ Biotech is right for you.