scientist

senior associate scientist

shipper/receiver

senior scientist

associate scientist

Alcami

I joined Alcami after spending over a decade in the CDMO industry, including a few years as a people manager.  It seemed like a good fit.  However upon joining my skills and experience were not put to a good use.  My role and responsibilities were essentially that of an entry level employee with no experience, even though I was being compensated similar to what I was making at my previous company as a manager.  The QMS is similar to what I have seen at Big Pharma, which does not allow the flexibility needed in the contract manufacturing industry.  Management leans heavily on employees to meet deadlines and expects the staff to sacrifice their personal lives for the betterment of the company.  There was significant turnover during my time there.  I would recommend Alcami only to individuals with no personal life who are just starting out in the industry and interested in gaining experience or who plan on staying with the company for decades.  Experienced professionals should seek other opportunities.  Investment in the Charleston site and divesting other sites leads me to believe Alcami is setting itself up to be sold in the near future.

Deliberately keeping a skeleton crew in place leads to high profits for shareholders, but for the employees- high stress and burn out, regular long hours and weekend work, the requirement of uncompromising and utter devotion to the company, and a generally unsatisfying lifestyle.
There is a lack of long term investment in personnel.
The overall culture of the company is strong, outside of the executive level.  The staff include many good people.
There are personnel available with strong knowledge of methods/practices, and there are relatively well developed SOP's and procedures, as to be expected for a company of it's size and longevity.
The compensation is better than average for the area of the country, but much lower than industry standards.

I learned a lot from this job. Adequate training is severely limited. No matter how hard you work, they will always undervalue you. Management preaches accountability but does not practice it. The work environment is HOSTILE. The VP made jokes of employees very real concerns. QA is an absolute joke. They want robots that they can program. It is highly unethical. They chose to ignore problems instead of addressing them. The workload of 4 employees is put on 1 person. If you voice concerns management looks at you as a problem. For this to be a pharmaceutical company, the insurance provided leaves A LOT to be desired. Management turns a blind eye to some people who break the rules, go against procedures, and don’t follow policies. Procedures are not clear and there is no urgency to remediate it. You are always a liability, never an asset. In my personal opinion, this job is not worth the stress that you have to endure.

As a Materials Management Coordinator we were tasked with recieving in incoming shipments and sending them to their respective locations. When I started there was little direction given in regards to training and you were practically thrown most of the courses to complete. Upon starting it felt rushed and once I was 1 month in I was randomly terminated by my manager.

But alas there were other issues with the department. Missing lunches and second breaks were common in SCU as shipments 'can come in anytime.' Culture/environment in the room seemed unnecessarily stressful at times.

Guess I should of listened to my coworkers when I mentioned Alcami. I brushed off the rumors and decided to go for it. And it turned out to be one of the worst places I have worked at.

I believe that Alcami pays standard or above average for the size company and type of work we do, although benefits and bonuses could use some modification. Company goals need to be established to help employees build on their expectations and reviews should be weighted based on actual performance. 

There seems to have been a lot of turnover over recent years and it has been contributed to former management style in many instances. I'm interested to see how the new team will roll out culture changes and work with the dedicated employees that want to see change and make it happen. There have been many great coversations already had with employees to kick off some of the ideas and concepts. I think Alcami is on track to where it should be.

No matter what you do, or how hard you work, it will never be good enough for the soul sucking management at Alcami. And if you don't like it, well, there's the door!! That have actually said that at a town hall meeting. Say good-bye to ever getting recognized or appreciated for the hard work you do.  Their management style is to systematically pick at you to make you feel as if you need to do a little bit more to be successful, stay a little later, work weekends...only it never, ever, will it ever be good enough.  You will always be chasing the proverbial carrot. This is a mind game they play to get everyone to work harder, faster, and longer hours. Run away, it is not worth it.

Workplace culture is toxic, breaks are discouraged. Work/life balance is not achievable, unpaid overtime was expected and "built into the salary". "Almost no-one gets 'exceeds expectations' on evaluations" or promotions no matter how much work they but in 'beyond expectation' (literally the current catch phrase) is expected, without appreciation. Very unclear expectations. Metrics are not transparent. If you are willing to trade your peace of mind it is a decent salary. The best part of the job was my fellow analysts, which were very knowledgeable and helpful, we were trauma bonded. 

You can learn new skills and meet new people, but aside from that there are no benefits to working here. No work life balance, no caring about employee's careers. The culture is to pump out as much as possible for the high spend clients (it's about the dollars, not the medicine) without regard for worker or patient safety. Extremely high turnover. If you want to be treated like a robot, sign up! Otherwise, stay far away. Theyll probably tell you "it's not for everyone". Sure, it's not for anyone who would rather work than sit in pointless meetings. Or for anyone who actually likes doing things outside of alcami. They'll tell you for years that they're headed in the right direction (enter buzz words) but it doesn't mean anything.

You are required to work on all of your days off if they request it. If you are late because of being overworked and exhausted from a 15 day straight requirement,  you are immediately given a final writeup or fired...hence the revolving door! Please....PLEASE don't believe the new hire rhetoric! I've exelled beyond expectations, and is still treated like I never mattered.

Night shifts weren't as bad because it was quieter and there weren't as many managers around to screw up your day. The constant mandatory overtime  and weekend days will ruin your time off. The company promised they'd cut back on weekend work, but our shift supervisor had to make a weekend call-in schedual so that people could occasionaly get their normal 2 day weekend. And if your not working, the ammount of calls and messages you get off the clock ruin the weekend anyways. There are deffinetly a FEW amazing people working here, but overall I wouldn't reccomend

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Scientist 4 salaries reported	$61,750 per year
Senior associate scientist 3 salaries reported	$60,667 per year
Shipper/receiver 8 salaries reported	$23.92 per hour
Senior scientist 4 salaries reported	$76,375 per year
Associate scientist 3 salaries reported	$24.67 per hour

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