Great First Job - Recensione dipendente - Graduate Scientist presso ProImmune

Overall company seems very friendly and supportive. You will meet a lot of genuinely lovely interesting people. Most the people pull their weight which makes the work more manageable. The new labs are better than the old ones and are nicer to work in but not without issues. The work is interesting to start with and you definitely get involved quickly. Over time there seems to be some possibility to get involved in some different techniques. There is “responsibility” to take on early on which is ok if you want to do extra work. The graduate experience varies quite a lot across the departments but it sounds like there are some good aspects for each department. Management are varying levels of helpful, but there are ones that care.

Walk through the labs and you’ll hear the same people who spend all day talking, complaining that their workload is too high, some managers crying and moaning about having to do their job thinking no one can hear them and actually productive people running about covering for people chatting. If you are someone who likes to work, there is plenty for you to do here to cover for people who are fake busy. For those that are actually busy, the pay is not reflective of the amount of work they do. The work becomes samey and all you are asked to do is more of the same but quicker by the managers who just want to look good to their manager. There are some managers who just outright ignore some people and only talk to their favourites. The company is trying to be big in some ways but one of those ways is not employee benefits which are basically non-existent.

Your experience at ProImmune hugely depends on which team you get placed into, I was part of the Services department and overall enjoyed and appreciated my time on this team.

The wider company culture isn’t great, one of the issues being a flat management structure so the people who do a lot of the actual lab supervision end up somewhat unsupported and overworked. The majority of the company are grads which can be really lovely and social but also puts a lot of pressure on the people in a supervisory role as often they are grads too. Company responses to issues which arise can be totally out of proportion, with the upper managers tending to blame / try to find someone to blame / threatening to reduce pay / threatening to remove bonuses rather than using collaboration to find a solution. You won’t be praised for hard work particularly acknowledged as managers are busy - however it is worth saying the Services manager Oscar does try to keep the Services team feeling like they are valued, and overall he is a good manager of the team. Before moving for this job, I’d carefully consider the other reviews and which team you’re being placed into - especially as a grad scientist.