Great place to work for the science, but many issues have gotten worse over the last year.
Pros
Good opportunities to expand skills and work with ground breaking science (as long as you are also willing to drive innovation). Many great people from diverse backgrounds enrich working environment. Effort is made to create environment where workers can speak up and share concerns, although solutions do not come easily, if at all.
Cons
Not much room for promotion past Senior Scientist, while responsibilities can constantly increase. Too much responsibility is piled on Scientists/Senior Scientists to cover lack of staff in supporting positions and long arduous bureaucratic processes in place. Significant time is spent on admin, waste management, equipment maintenance, booking equipment and ordering reagents, lab cleaning/organisation, etc. While there is an open environment to raise issues, the responsibility to fix them almost always falls on the person who raised them. Currently, labs and offices are extremely crowded, with queues for some scientific equipment longer than a month. Tissue culture hood space is precious, and many have to rely on cancellations or non 9-5 working hours to carry out their experiments. It seems likely this will not be fixed with the move to the DISC as the space was designed when the company was much smaller. While scientific attitude is generally a positive for AZ, it can lead to significant pressure to advance projects and run experiments. This often leads to a disregard for health and safety as not much time is left to dedicate to it.
