operator

senior scientist

qc technician

associate scientist

laboratory technician

Aldevron

Joint Vacation/Sick leave (2 weeks PTO total) Company will suggest you use your PTO to cover partial holiday hours or you can chose to not get paid the remaining 2 hours they do not cover. Company will suggest you use PTO when they shutdown production. Other options are to not get paid or try to get on the "volunteer list" to come in and work on inventory. However, the list will have limited slots, the shift may be the opposite to your own (if you get off at 0200 you'll need to be back at 0700), and it will not be a full 10 hour shift. So... you have to use PTO to fill in the hours or not get paid. Company surveys have resulted in less than desirable results. They send out surveys, but the changes they have made do not seem to address the issues we have been bringing to management. They seem more energetic about high participation than they do in implementing any changes. The company acknowledges that the night shift receives a differential due to scheduling inconvenience, but they expect more work out of you since you get paid more. This differential is being offered as a financial incentive to work on an irregular schedule and the elevated chance of accruing overtime. On the other hand, I understand it, day shift is underpaid in everyone's opinion. Health insurance for one individual is almost covered by the company entirely (depending on plan selection), if you have a spouse or family (or are thinking about starting one) you are better off finding coverage on the marketplace. Expect an additional 5-10k of your income to go to insurance if you are not alone. Recent movements for increased efficiency have led to less comfortable working conditions. Fewer chairs in the laboratory means people sit less and that might make them do stuff, but when you have to be in there for extended periods of time you get stuck standing for hours on end. Pushes for more accountability on time spent in the lab is understandable, but it requires additional work to aid in tracking and makes you feel more like a machine than an employee. Company needs better PPE and more transparency between the safety team and operators. People have been complaining about new laboratory practices having negative impacts on their health, we were told the chemicals used are classified as irritants. That seems to be as far as they are taking it. Very poor COVID protocol. Once week you will be placed in an overcrowded conference room for a meeting with every shift. So your exposure limited increases substantially. Of you are an at risk person, they do maintain a steady supply of masks. There are few experienced staff members on the floor. Supervisors you will have may have less than 2 years experience at the company and/or in biomanufacturing. Moving/sign on bonuses are repayable if you leave before 2 years. Read your offer letter closely. Overcrowded areas outside of the laboratory (in common areas) due to high increase in staff countered with slower increase of infrastructure to accommodate them. The push to increase lab size and production does not appear sustainable in the short term. Too few are experienced enough to support more production and unpaid promotions/increased awarding of additional job duties surpasses how often the organization gives paid promotions. The company has been utilizing a hiring service that has not been providing accurate details to the people they recruit. Discrepancies in pay, hours and PTO have been seen. So validate your schedule and compensation with a manager before accepting a job. Do not rely solely on the recruiting firm for details. Irregular starting wages between employees have been a widespread topic. You should press for more starring out. Otherwise you'll find yourself making less than others simply because you didn't ask for more. Also, you will envy people under contracts because they will make a lot more than you. Some will be pressing 20k higher than you a year.

Do you get experience working here? Yes. Does that experience help you to find a better job? Absolutely! 

Would I recommend working here? no.

Not only is Aldevron chronically understaffed, they expect the staff they keep to do the work of at least 2, if not 3, people. Projects are constantly added to your pile, even things outside of your job description, just because they don't have the amount of people they need to operate at the level they are trying to.

On top of that, internal staff was overlooked for promotions. Oftentimes, either an outside hire (or even a contractor) filled senior level positions, over someone who had 3-4 years of knowledge of how the company operated and had demonstrated their dedication to Aldevron.

Pay is low, health insurance is fine. They pay low for what's expected, because they're based in Fargo, so they feel the "cost of living" justifies their low pay. Also, they have a terrible salary increase structure -- the highest raise you can EVER get per employee handbook is 5% (only if you got "exceeding expectations" on every aspect of your review), and your first raise is prorated unless you started on Jan 1, so be ready for a 1-2% raise at your first annual review. You also only get accrual PTO, so if you get sick or have kids that get sick, be prepared to not have any time for vacation. 

Manufacturing at Aldevron has a terrible reputation, and has incredibly high turnover because of the terrible production schedule. Biologics don't like schedules, and you'll often end up working late because they scheduled relief staff to do other tasks.

Turnover is high in general. Most people have been at the company less than two years. As such, expectations change almost monthly-- the way you submit documents, how QA reviews your documents, how you run tests, what regulations mean, etc., all based on who is making those decisions now. Because expectations are so high, people burn out. I would sometimes wake up in a cold sweat, worried about potentially screwing something up at work. Because Aldevron is a CMO, not only do you need to stay on top of FDA regulations, you need to appease clients as well. That meant there was an incredible amount of pressure at all times. 

Overall, I feel like Aldevron tries to lean on the fact that they're "changing the world" while chronically mistreating staff and under-paying them, while it's incredibly clear that the company is making money hand over foot. You may find some good people here, but overall, working here is messy and exhausting. 

Aldevron is a fast-paced and inspiring company. The company is involved in many cutting-edge areas of science. The values and mission of the company are outstanding, and center on serving, collaborating, and advancing science. The company presents unlimited career growth opportunities due to the needs of the industry, coupled with Aldevron's leadership. Their vision and swift actions for growth in all resource areas will allow the company to remain the leading CMO with the portfolio of products produced and continue meeting the industry demand, but in a more rapid way. The employee compensation has greatly improved, and there are excellent career advancement and growth for motivated employees. Great benefits. Pace is a  challenge for some individuals, and with growth comes change that may not be a good fit for some. Continuous improvement is always driving beneficial change. Like many industries, the work is stressful at times, but the challenges are part of the fun of this company, and foster great internal and external collaboration. All teams work together very well, collaborate, and have common goals centered around client needs. It really is a great place to work for anyone wanting a challenge, and excited about the industry.

Management is some of the worst I've ever seen outside of jobs for high schoolers. Bonuses are typically lowered, wage increase doesn't even match inflation, expectations get higher and higher every year with no additional compensation. Danaher has infested Aldevron with their micro management systems, forcing supervisors to constantly bother employees and having employees write down what time they start and stop tasks. There is zero trust in employees. Then management gets free food all the time and clogs up the hallways with frivolous meetings (sometimes blocking them entirely). The pay is also much lower than industry standard because they only build in low income/cost of living areas which are easy to exploit. No sick pay, no notice when mass firings happen. Very hard to get promotions unless you are personal friends with management. Changes are also very frequent and not communicated to employees in a timely matter, or sometimes even at all. Even then, we often get conflicting answers between SOPs, management, and experts.

 Training is non existent. Management is absent at best and never comes into the labs so the rules and procedures they put in place are not based on reality. Fancy janitorial work essentially. You are on your own for scheduling your day as management does not care so the workload is intense. You are also the bottom of the ladder so tasks that are not yours end up on your plate. You are told that this position is good to get your foot in the door and advance but you won't be considered for a job change until 9 months in and even after that I had coworkers that were promoted who were not allowed to start their new position for 3 to 5 months because we were told we were understaffed. All the experienced people left and Most of the new people are college students or recent graduates who are having this as their first full time job. People are passed over for promotions and outside hires are made instead. Also NO SICK TIME! People are constantly sick and you have to use your PTO for sick days so some people havent had a vacation in years.

Culture of low grade but chronic intimidation and fear peppered with hostility was allowed and tolerated from certain leaders.

During times of vacancies in key leadership roles, lower-level staff were made to pick up additional work and the associated stress that comes with being rudderless.  

Company chews low to mid level management up and spits them out.  Management is burnt out by unrealistic expectations for how much can be accomplished in a day.  Low to midlevel management will work much more than 40 hours a week to keep up with demands from upper management. No professional development or mentorship for these key roles. They are made to feel like they only fail and receive no appreciation for successes. The GM would personally chastise people two to three levels below her instead of trusting management to handle their staff.

I left because the lab culture was toxic. People will actively look for ways to step on you to advance in even the slightest way, and management will not back you up if you have an issue. Tensions are high because we're all exhausted from working so much, often 6 days a week with little to no notice. The pay is low for how stressful the work can be. It is a detail oriented job and you really need an advanced degree to complete the work, but you won't get paid enough to pay back your student loans. The hours are long, typically 55+ hours per week. To their credit, the RG managers are wonderful. You can tell they are actively trying to make conditions better, but can only do so much with the intense pressure placed on them by upper management. Its a good company to start in, because it really teaches you how to work under pressure and deal with conflict, but it's not a place to stay and advance. Overall, as a company it has potential... but they need to figure a lot of things out.

I found this job quite interesting when I first started, but then I noticed that people kept quitting (including managers and other higher lever employees) yet the workload either stayed the same or increased. At first we were told it was due to the end of quarter ramp up in production, but now it's become sort of a joke that the quarter has been ending for the past year, a joke that would be much funnier if it didn't mean missing my break multiple times a week. That plus the fact that the high turnover rate means many of the people we work with barely know how to do their jobs (which is fair, considering they just started) means you may very well end up doing the work of several people and at the same time not really be sure what you are doing yourself. Rather stressful to work here, especially if you work nights or weekends and are basically expected to run the place by yourself.

Management never wants to take accountability or make hard calls but instead wants someone that gets paid less to make the calls for them. When I approach them about this they just say they want the team to be self efficient. This way they don't have to do anything. I would do this and take charge and get fired for it. As if management didn't order me to do this. Avoid this place and apply elsewhere to avoid the headache. They also came up with this horrible PTO plan that can put you in debt. If you don't have enough PTO and you call off, they will make you use PTO to the negatives and if you get fired or laid off you would have to pay that back. There is no sick time so if you get sick and your contagious they will make you pull PTO that you don't have and you would be responsible to pay it back. In a industry that isn't stable for job security it is a bad idea.

I worked as a lab technician at Aldevron and had a mixed experience overall. The company does important work in biotechnology, and I appreciated being part of a team contributing to meaningful projects. The lab environment was generally well-equipped, and I gained valuable hands-on experience that helped build my technical skills.

That said, there were some challenges. The workload could be inconsistent at times, and communication between departments didn’t always feel clear or efficient. Training varied depending on the team, which sometimes made it harder to feel fully prepared in the role.

Management support was hit or miss, but many coworkers were helpful and collaborative, which made the day-to-day work more enjoyable.

Overall, it’s a decent place to gain experience in the biotech field, but there are areas that could be improved to better support employees and consistency across teams.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Operator 5 salaries reported	$25.00 per hour
Senior scientist 7 salaries reported	$85,614 per year
Qc technician 3 salaries reported	$20.52 per hour
Associate scientist 4 salaries reported	$59,750 per year
Laboratory technician 4 salaries reported	$19.75 per hour

Working at Aldevron: Company Overview and Reviews

Aldevron

Aldevron Ratings

Popular jobs at Aldevron

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected