Roche reviews

Each manager I had at Roche was a good individual contributor, often a leader among peers, but a terrible at managing people. Roche has a tendency to promote people who deliver results and view management as a way to give a career path for top performers, instead of carefully considering management roles for people who have skills for the role. This is likely common in most industries, but I found middle managers at Roche to be obsessed with their own personal career ambitions as opposed to being considerate of those of their team. Some were boldly two-faced, showing their best side to their peers and superiors and worst to the team below, and often the only forum to account for this is the 2-year GEOS survey. But often middle managers fire employees to game their own management ranking, which has the added effect of ensuring subordination of those who remain on the team. That said Roche is extremely progressive in their HR policies, I would not be surprised to see them calibrate this over time, and Roche also offers phenomenal leadership development programs and continuing education to help build soft skills. The problem is the self-centered middle managers who are only thinking about their next career step, and a lack of opportunities for candid manager feedback outside of GEOS. Pay is also considerably lower than the market rate in the industry, but career opportunities and benefits are top-notch.

The managing style is highly hierarchical. The manager not necessary are very aware of the state of the art techniques ( even not familiar with the field), yet they would micro-manage every step of you. Lack of knowledge even on very basic practices in domains such as computer science, machine learning, or data science. Minor: There is a mismatch between what is advertised on their web page, and what they would offer you in reality. As an engineer, you are not equipped with high-end laptops. You are not going to have an workstation or a stationary desk at work (only a laptop). As a temporary employee, you have no new year bonus or any benefit as a permanent employee. If you are not an EU citizen you will mainly get an L permit to work in Switzerland for a temporary position which is not a good permit.