Pros
SciVida is a new firm that seems to have gotten off to an impressive start. When I considered the opportunity, my mind kept coming back to the saying “with great risk comes great reward.” Making any job change is a gamble, and certainly joining a new endeavor is among the riskier of options. But the leaders of this firm really have their act together, and they’ve set things up right for their employees. I took great comfort in the fact that they had done this before and honed a lot of best practices along the way. And I’m happy to say that so far, I have not been disappointed. I love the fact that all team members regardless of role have a voice in various aspects of operations. I love the fact that strategic thinking, excellence, and client satisfaction are important parts of our culture, because it makes us strive to be better (even when/even though we do a good job to begin with), and our clients appreciate that we make them look good within their own organizations and help them see things they otherwise may not have thought of. Our clients tend to view us as partners and advisors and not simply extra staff to do things they can’t get done themselves. Below is a list of some key “pros” that come to mind about working at SciVida: • Diverse mix of projects (project types, product types and development phases, diseases/therapeutic areas) means you get great experience • Collaborative team that pitches in to help one another • Recognition (and rewards) for strong performance • Ample opportunity for advancement and support from leaders in developing staff* • Quality assurance process • Superior 401(k) options • Generous PTO policy *Whether you’re early on in your career and looking for broad and deep experience/a stepping stone toward an unknown ultimate career goal, or you’re in the mid-point of your career and already know consulting is your jam and now you seek a “home” to settle down in and stay for the long haul, SciVida seems to be a good fit for either of those scenarios.
Cons
Infrastructure and internal processes are surprisingly way ahead of where you would expect they would be for a nascent firm, but it is indeed still a small/growing company and other than a solid onboarding process, formal training opportunities in terms of courses and/or a learning management system (LMS) and/or inservices are yet to be tackled. (The good news is that leaders and managers are great about carving out time to guide more junior team members to aid in development in the absence of a formal LMS.) Additionally, while PTO is encouraged and respected (i.e., no one bugs you to do stuff while you are out), project work can sometimes get intense with the inevitable late night. No matter how good work-life balance can be at times, and it generally is, this is still consulting and anyone expecting to never work late or to never work the occasional weekend should look elsewhere (really, should probably not actually be looking in consulting at all).