Alector Reviews

It’s a very lean work environment where people are over worked and stressed the majority of the time and it shows based on their toxic attitudes. The People team and some management emphasize the need to take time off for the sake of mental health but realistically, there’s not enough manpower for employees to take time off to meet these stringent timelines. If you take time off or use a sick day, then you’ll have to make up the work by coming in on the weekend or work very late to meet these timelines, which is expected from my manager. And because of these tight timelines, there is no room for mistakes when performing lab experiments as the cost and wasted time is heavily emphasized and reiterated. As a result, the environment is very toxic where managers yell and threaten job security and emphasize poor work performance instead of being a leader and creating a positive work environment.

There has been a high turnover rate of leadership ranging from Associate Directors to C-level executives and individuals across the company. Chances result from poor decision-making and encouraging the wrong people to lead or have an essential say behind closed doors. No/go decisions were constantly getting pushed, spending millions more on programs that should have been terminated. This was further enabled by individuals patting themselves on the back when their performance was poor and inconsistent. There is a culture of double standards, blaming others for incompetence, and a constant need to outsource their work to academic collaborators. Favoritism is rampant at Alector; promotions will depend heavily on what group an individual belongs to. It will be made extremely clear if an individual is not a favorite, and their future at Alector will be short-lived. Many who do not quit suffer in silence. I have seen quite a firing happen to several people at Alector. Being a "yes man" will get a person far at Alector and completely contradict one of Alector's values of "question convention." Individuals who fall in line and mindlessly follow directions will fit in just fine. Those that constantly deliver are taken for granted and expected to maintain or work harder to be considered loyal to the company. I have seen several people passed up for rightfully deserved promotions and others promoted for the promise of what they will deliver. IT services aren’t great everywhere, but they’re especially bad at Alector, and no one is doing anything about it. Alector has in-house IT personnel and a 3rd party that can help with the small stuff virtually. The in-house IT people are rude and often close issue tickets without resolving them. They’re so inadequate that we currently do not have access to the internal internet, and it has been over two months.