senior scientist

associate director

director

scientist

sales representative

AbbVie

Monitoring cloud and on-prem infrastructure for healthcare applications, ensuring systems met HIPAA compliance.

Managing CI/CD workflows—deploying critical updates and automating deployments using Jenkins, Ansible, and Terraform.

Collaborating with development and security teams to implement secure, scalable cloud solutions on AWS.

Troubleshooting infrastructure issues, optimizing deployment pipelines, and resolving configuration problems quickly to maintain uptime.

Attending daily standups to align with cross-functional teams on sprint goals and deployments.
 What You Believe You Learned
At AbbVie, I gained:

Deep understanding of HIPAA-regulated environments and how to implement security best practices within CI/CD workflows.

Expertise in cloud infrastructure automation and compliance, particularly using Terraform and Ansible for secure deployment frameworks.

The importance of cross-functional communication when coordinating with development, security, and operations teams in a healthcare setting.

How to streamline legacy system migration to modern, cost-effective, and compliant cloud-based architectures.

Management
The management style at AbbVie was:

Structured and compliance-driven, reflecting the regulated nature of the pharmaceutical industry.

Supportive of professional development, often encouraging engineers to take ownership of initiatives and mentor junior staff.

Encouraged risk-aware innovation, where automation and efficiency were balanced with patient data privacy and safety concerns.

Workplace Culture
The workplace culture was:

Collaborative, with a strong emphasis on knowledge sharing and team success.

Mission-driven, where everyone understood the impact of their work on healthcare outcomes.

Process-oriented but flexible, especially in adopting modern DevOps and cloud practices to improve legacy systems.

The Hardest Part of the Job
Navigating the balance between speed and compliance was often the most challenging. Any infrastructure or deployment change required thorough documentation, testing, and approval cycles.

Migrating legacy systems to the cloud while maintaining uptime and compliance added complexity and required precise planning and communication.

The Most Enjoyable Part of the Job
Knowing that your work directly supported healthcare innovation and patient safety was deeply rewarding.

Solving complex automation and cloud infrastructure challenges, and seeing measurable improvements in deployment speed, security posture, and cost reduction.

Working with diverse, mission-focused professionals, which made the environment intellectually stimulating and purpose-driven.



Pay for contractor pharmacists is well below market average. Do not be surprised to be earning up to 30 to 50% less than a typical retail pharmacist. 

Management uses the prospect of being hired on full time to entice contractors to work harder, while management could be very well planning to never hire you. There have been many contractors that have started and quit. There have been contractors that have been there for 2 years before being hired on full time. Nothing is guaranteed and management will not be transparent about your prospects. If management just doesn't like you (for whatever arbitrary reason), you will have no chance of being hired on, and you will waste your time here as a contractor until you finally realize that you are being taken advantage of. Contractor seniority/experience on the job mean nothing in the hiring process. If you like gambling your time and money on a career path that might not ever pay off, try your luck here.

Management is entirely focused on increasing pharmacy volume at the cost of their workers time and sanity. There are constant staffing issues, and do not be surprised to be asked to work OT and weekends. While OT is rarely required (there have however been times where OT is mandatory), they will make it seem like you have no chance of being hired on if you refuse OT.

Treatment of technicians in the dispensing pharmacy is terrible. Technicians have a minimum of 6 to 8 hours of OT each week, and they dictate when you can or can't do your OT hours. Even technicians that leave after doing their OT hours before all the prescriptions are sent out are looked down upon for not being a "team player" (this departments idea of a "team player" is someone who stays 10 to 12 hours a day and until all prescriptions are finished, with no regard for any family or life circumstances). Technicians and pharmacists are burnt out and turnover rate is high. Just this year, the pharmacy has had 8 pharmacists leave. Turnover is even higher for technicians. Either management is still clueless as to why so many people are leaving, or they don't care.

The fulfillment area of the pharmacy is a physically demanding job. If you can not stay on your feet for 8 to 12 hours a day (on top of constantly lifting and moving around boxes/totes), do not bother with this job, they will fire you instead of trying to accommodate.

While the wider culture in AbbVie is excellent, Pharmacy Solutions consistently has issues. The culture here is not like other departments in AbbVie. If the AbbVie name and benefits weren't attached to Pharmacy Solutions, I doubt many people would be staying.

Company as a whole is excellent in terms of compensation and benefits, which it needs to be if you work in Access and Reimbursement Services (formerly Pharmacy Solutions) as that will become your only motivation to continue to show up every day. Astoundingly abysmal leadership, hired based on nepotism rather than qualifications, experience, knowledge, education, or actual leadership abilities.  Nobody is even really sure what it is they do all day outside of counting how many minutes the employees take to go to the bathroom and running productivity reports. They have no ability to answer questions about the actual work or HR related issues. Zero work life balance, years on end of mandatory OT which would be unnecessary if leadership applied logic and reason to processes, focused on fixing the terrible systems, or implemented things that are proven to increase productivity (eg working from home, ending OT by properly staffing and training) instead of micro managing like the power tripping control freaks they are. And the work systems and platforms - absolute joke. Employees are treated like factory machines (and have actually been referred to as such by leadership in analogies), nothing is ever good enough, and all the focus is constantly on what employees are doing wrong, going so far as to blame them for the years on end of mandatory OT (as if everyone is slacking off, which most are not).  Forget making good suggestions or giving feedback on ways to improve processes, or anything else for that matter, as it WILL be reflected negatively in your reviews and in whether or not you’re selected for projects if it doesn’t align with what leadership thinks inside their tiny little boxes. If you do anything but smile and nod, you’re screwed.  Getting out and staying with the company is difficult as basically everyone is trying to do so (300+ employees) and there are only so many available positions outside of the department. Little room for advancement, and leadership, despite their many flaws, hate their jobs even more than the people who they lead so very few people find advancing within the department to be an appealing option.

- Regarding the IA management , they are on the older side and perhaps in a coasting phase until retirement. This situation doesn't inspire high expectations for significant changes or innovation. 

 - Regarding audits, the audit process hasn’t evolved much over the past 10 years, and there’s a perception that the primary goal is to make the IA’s management look good. Significant budgets are allocated for audits and global travel, yet most audits don't seem to add a lot of value to the company. also the culture at the internal audit function is so toxic. Management knows that but not willing to do anything about it. 

- When it comes to the rotation program, here’s the lowdown: As a senior, you’ll be required to rotate into a different business area after 24 months. Sounds enticing, right? But beware—it can be a bit of a trap. Most likely, you’ll find yourself rotating into finance or some other function that might not be known for a good work/life balance or a good culture/work environment. Most good auditors end up leaving the company before their 2 year mark. 

 - If you are in the city, the drive to Abbott park (where internal auditors sit) is going to be really rough. You are expect to be in the office for 3 days or more and they are keeping a close eye on attendance. Not a whole lot of flexibility. 

 - AbbVie, once heavily reliant on Humira (which contributed a large portion of its revenue), now faces a significant shift. With Humira’s exclusivity lost and its revenue share went down significantly, the future might not be that bright for the next 5-10 years. They might be thinking of cost-saving measures to reduce cost, and potential rounds of layoffs. Something to consider.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part of working for Abbvie for 32 years was the diversity of people who worked there.  Also the wide variety of jobs available within my degree and abilities.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful part of working for the company is the cuts in full time employees over time.  The unrealistic expectations of management that fewer people produce more scientific data in less time with fewer resources.  The employees in my area (drug development) were burning out at a faster rate.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The environment was becoming more stressful.  Management turnover was happening faster.  Each new VP had a new management style and new organizational chart for the R&D area.  New ways for us to work harder with fewer FTE's and less resources, while still producing "world class science".  The overall culture within my department was mostly pleasant.  Our lower level managers understood the pressures and tried to help where they could.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Most days involved working on assigned stability analyses of drug products.  I spent about 50% of my time in the analytical lab and 25% of my time performing writeups of the data I produced.  My data was directly imported into FDA filings.  Therefore, accuracy and repeatability of the data was of vital importance.  My data was verified by a 2nd analyst.  I also spent about 25% of my time verifying the data of other analysts.  Any "extra" time was spent performing instrument maintenance, team building, internal working teams, and various other needed meetings.

Many people have quit - and are still quitting-mass exodus. They keep on doing employee surveys cuz they know something’s wrong. We tell them but they don’t change anything. People left and got other jobs This is why: 

No accountability for other departments who constantly pass the baton to you to do their job. This is BIG part of culture here 

When you tell your manager about it, INSTEAD  of your manager making other departments accountable for their own jobs, you are told to just do other people’s work to not rock the boat. Like the managers are even intimidated to talk to other departments and therefore enable this stuff! That says a lot about even the culture for management . Are they not allowed to speak up too? What’s all that about?

Zero empowerment- like trying to beat you into submission, probably to convince you that you will never be good enough to go anywhere else to work 

Convoluted ridiculous time consuming internal procedures where you can spend literally days  on end trying to sort through it all just to find  out what to do or how to do something because god forbid you ask someone how 

So I left. I had to get out - like many others. Stress was not worth it. My kids noticed too. This place is run by dinosaurs in twilight zone who rather let their direct teports do work beyond their scope (aka other people’s work) instead of getting other depts off their back. My boss was supersurprized when I said I quit  because I just put up with it all. It’s ironic cuz I told my boss how I felt all along. 

Don’t be fooled by all the marketing stuff- this place is not the place you want to be

Depending on the day, I was in the car and on my way to the first call of the day somewhere between 7am and 8am. A typical day consisted of 7 to 9 calls on healthcare providers, one or two calls on pharmacies, as well as pre-call preparation (review of previous call and current account performance) and post call analysis (objections uncovered, commitments gained, what to focus on next call) for each of those healthcare provider calls. Return to home or hotel usually was between 6 and 7pm.
Most evenings involved several hours worth of computer time completing modules designed to educate about product which I was promoting, about compliance with federal and company regulations, and to submit necessary paperwork for company funding of displays at local provider conferences (such as both the Utah and Idaho Gut Clubs) and CF Foundation fund raisers.
Interaction with co-workers was limited to quarterly district meetings and regional or national sales meetings, since the other district members were all in southern California.  My manager, who lived in San Diego, would fly to Utah once every 4 to 6 weeks to work with me for two days.
The most challenging part of the job was the absolute need to manage my time so as to be able to have some measure of work-life balance.
The most enjoyable part of the job is my daily interaction with healthcare providers while promoting both the company and it's excellent products.

Hard to get into AbbVie and once in then hard to move up. People stay in the same position for years despite having qualifications or degrees. There is something fundamentally wrong in pharmacy solutions. In my group after five years, after dozens of people, only three people ever got promoted to other departments. Development is a complete sham. I’m glad I left when I could because I gave up trying to make an effort or impression simply making managers look good who were clueless... employees often step in to answer manager questions or help with other simple tasks.  Manager turnover rather high too. Only one manager knows what their doing. The culture isn’t good mainly because many in techs or csr roles are never given chance to move up or shadow others. Contractors are even discriminated against if trying to apply for another Internal contractor roles. Someone needs to blow the whistle on hiring practices here. Definite EEO violations. They always decide who they want when there is a position open because they groom certain people so no one is given a fair chance. It’s a facade to make it look like interview quota is good and just. When they decide who they want, they quickly filter people and give you fake feedback or set your interview up so you fail. Asking how many projects you have done or so and so unrealistic questions because they should know limitations in your role especially if tied to a desk or phone. Shame on AbbVie for letting such practices run rampant. There are so many talented and educated people in pharmacy solutions who are stuck because of poor culture and some rotten eggs in management.

Pharmacy Solutions is by far the worst place I've been employed at... The management is highly questionable. They make you believe, in your interview, that there is a possibility to hire you after you meet your time as a contractor. That is a lie!!! I know people who have been here for 2 years and despite constant attempts to move up and even learn new skills, supervisors and management will say NO. They don't care about you at all!!!! They will pay you spare change and not be willing to negotiate anything despite being here for a while. If you try speaking up for yourself, no matter how respectful you are, they don't care. They shut you down. They tell you you cant speak to them directly because you are a contractor. The office politics here is heavy. I tried learning and taking more leadership roles, but they refuse to teach you and help you advance in any way shape and form here. They will report you for the pettiest most minuscule things ever!!!!! They will target you and make you feel belittled. Unless you want to be a suck-up for years and years on end, with no pay increase, no ability to learn new skills, terrible management/supervisors/leadership, no work-life balance RUNNNNNN. I've tried to be reasonable with my management, however they are NOT willing to work with you at all regarding shift changes, despite being here for a LONG amount of time, long-story short don't bother with this place that uses you. Pharmacy Solutions just cares about its metrics that's it. Terrible culture, morals, and values in Pharmacy Solutions. Work for any other department in AbbVie BUT this one!

I was very lucky in that I had great managers, and a good part of that was my attitude of always wanting to improve. The culture of the division I was in was positive; though that was not the same culture of the majority of other divisions, but it was a very stressful job.  There is flexibility in hours because you set your own schedule based on client scheduling and needs.   Some days I was in the field from 7am to 10pm and then the next day it would be 10am to 4pm. The major challenge was the amount of work you had to do outside of field work to analyze data and prepare for each day.  The pay and benefits were good, but when you broke it down to how many hours you actually worked rather than the 40 hour work week, they got more than their money’s worth out of you. 

There were a lot of good things and it is great if you are a workaholic like I was, I just got burnt out because the targeting for clients was all based on their volume of business but didn’t take in to consideration access and only paid lip service to the information that was coming from the people who were the boots on the ground.  Basically, I felt the industry in my area was getting to the point where bigger organizations were buying up all the independent offices and banned sales representatives as a general policy making it difficult to get in front of the actual decision makers. 

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