manufacturing associate

senior manufacturing associate

senior process engineer

process engineer

intern

Dexcom

Dexcom is a growing company experiencing growing pains.  Their corporate office is in San Diego and the Mesa location is trying to find it's way.  They are definitely growing but the upper management team is disconnected to the needs of the people on the floor.  Seems benefits originally offered are slowly being taken away.  The tasks in themselves are easy but boring and you stand/sit 11.5 hours a day doing the same thing over and over.  Favoritism is rampant by lower management and only a select favored few are given the chance to learn so they can grow.  If you are on the night shift you are unimportant to the upper staff as all classes, extra activities and "important" knowledge offerings are aimed at the daytime crew.  HR and office personnel are not scheduled during night crew hours and you must see them on your own time during off hours or days.  After working there a year and a half we learn that new hires are being brought in at $2-$4/hr more than us even though we have the same experience background as they do prior to hiring.  If you do apply make sure you get in at an Operator level that is conclusive to your manufacturing experience. If you have at least a year of manufacturing experience prior you should be able to be hired in higher than a level 1 employee.  Dexcom likes to tell their employees to consider their job a career but to advance you pretty much have to kiss butt and be on someones favorites list.  Moral right now is low because of changes going on due to growth. They keep moving us around and we feel insecure.
There are good things though such as yearly bonuses and the benefits are OK.  Upper management is accessible and will listen but acting upon legitimate concerns is a different story.  You do have steady work and steady hours if you don't mind working 11.5 hour shifts. You get two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch break.  The facilities are clean and better than most as far as work environment goes.  There are paid holidays and accumulated PTO is offered.  The people I work with are very nice and we all seem to get along throughout the building even though we are all very versatile in backgrounds and ethnicity.

Overall Dexcom is a relaxed place to work. Good salary, good work life balance and good investment in its people in terms of personnel training, software training and education. 

However ever changing strategies and the constant push by VPs and above to meet artificial deadlines create havoc. Outside ones little team bubble the larger organization does not make complete sense. As products/processes are half complete, or incomplete. Often critical decisions are made without input from the correct teams leading to significant wasted time and effort. I see new engineers needing to make important decisions without guidance or oversight, but do so to meet deadlines. I understand the need for deadlines, but when something is clearly wrong in Dexcom I've seen the timeline win out over and over...only to need to redo the process/product/etc. once the magnitude of the error presents itself. There is a rush to fix the error. The redo is also done in emergency fashion is rushed and takes two or three times of total effort (and time) to have just done the job correctly the first time. I have seen this happen over and over again. Overall this results in burnout and it is common for people being there several years to no longer care. They will rubber stamp what is needed so they move on and duck out of the noise.

If you goal is to make a difference, learn new skills and create new breakthrough products looks else ware. If your goal is to find a job you can work remote 20 hours a week, push paper and otherwise disappear into the noise that is Dexcom might be your calling. 

I loved working at DexCom, Their CGM is an unbelievable product and has saved many lives. If you look at the stock growth over the years clearly the public sees a future with this company. The management was easy to work for, everyone was driven and very type A so there weren't any issues with someone not doing their part. We were all so excited about the product and the growth that we were happy to be a part of it. Management was so encouraging and positive you wanted to do your best. My typical day was the same as most sales reps, I called on doctors, a few of the progressive doctors had heard about Dexcom and they were interested and excited. Most doctors had no idea what Dexcom was. I also taught Diabetes classes, started new patients on their Dexcom and provided education to health care providers. Both management and my co-workers were great, no complaints. The hardest part of the job was the same challenge most people have. We need more hours in the day. Which also leads me to my most enjoyable part of the job. I needed more hours in the day because I had the great product in my bag that was saving lives and doctors needed to know about it now! They needed to understand it and prescribe it for every type 1 patient out there. I would hear stories of specific patient's lives that were saved by using their Dexcom, that was definitely the most enjoyable part of my job. These stories also motivated me to make sure I could get to my doctors as quickly as possibly and help them to understand how life changing this product is. And they only have more to come in the future.

Great job can seem like a lot at first with the safety guidelines you MUST!!! follow all the time and the multiply task you will need to learn to do your job seems hard but its because your learning at least 5 task which all of them are very easy once your about 3 weeks in the job. You can move up in the Company but you got to really put effort into it to prove to them your capable and following safety procedures at all times of course. Management can be kind of annoy when you have more then one manger that tells you what to do not often in general because we all followed same produce little ways to do it is were opinions bump head's with what one manger said versus another then how you want to do it once your accustomed to it but its not often even so it can still be annoying. Coworkers are all generally nice but like any job I guess, some people talk, might make rumors, hear say, yadda yadda human nature I guess, whether you choose to socialize or keep to yourself the environment with coworkers is safe/friendly. Physically you need to stand up for an hour then you'll switch stations to one where your setting for next hour then switch again to a station where you stand. That will be your generally rotation working there. Some stations do you can be very very very tedious and can make the hour working that station seem like 2 hours. In the room you work in it can be very loud and I really like to blast my music in my ears which made it easy for me to tolerate but if I was extra tired or just not feeling 100%, the noise got to me and I find my ears ringing a bit from all the noise.

As a production operator, a typical day working would be starting as early as 4AM in the morning and ending as early around 1:30PM or around 2PM in the afternoon. 
I learned that the work environment is only fast-paced because co-workers would rush and push you. I learned within this "diverse" group that everyone could give you a cold shoulder and disrespect you. Whether that be verbally in another language, or straight up to your face with a hint of condescension. 
Workplace culture is like family. However, because this diverse group has their ways, I did not want to mold in with them, because I do not want any part of them. 
The first hardest part of the job was constantly working in a repetitive motion. The second hardest part of the job was that I started to see a certain buddy system that was working with each other to the point where it ran this department, to the point where a few genuine hard working individuals were not handed an opportunity in the department. The third hardest part of the job was the long hour and no room for growth in the company. It's a job to pay bills and accumulate income, but this lead to a no work-life balance and "crab-like" mentality. 
The only thing I enjoyed working here is that I came across very few genuine co-workers who made my day easier. And the fact that what I was doing in my position was helping for those who are in need.

Dexcom is a great place to work for if you don't mind being comfortable and staying in the position that you started in.Ever since working here at 
Dexcom, I've adapted to the culture, participated in events, donated to the charities that we sponsor, and consider myself a very loyal employee to the company. Spot on perfect attendance, willing to go the extra mile to work with higher ups, like engineers and technicians etc. and worked alot of OT. Personally, I tried many times to move up. Followed any necessary procedure that was needed to grow within the company and so many times I was overlooked. Considering the amount of experience I have.
Either someone else would get the job from the outside or I believed in my case favoritism played a part. I was told many times to wait for a spot to open and when it did, it would not fit my schedule. Even when I was told that there were positions opening up for the same shift. Management seems to shrug it off and pretty much tell you "better luck next time". All in all Dexcom has really good insights. What they do as a company is great. But for employees, its pretty much who you know that will help you move up.

The company seemed supportive at first of work /life balance and alternative work schedules to allow for me to fulfill other obligations outside of work and the management seemed understanding so I took the job.. This changed as soon as it was inconvenient.

It was expected to be available in evening hours, morning hours, and throughout the day to participate in meetings with business partners around the world despite having a life outside of work. There was an expectation to jump on a plane halfway across the world with a few days notice regardless of the impact to ones personal life.  

I recommend that you don't get sick because you will be made to feel like you are letting the team down. 

The environment is not collaborative, it is very cutthroat, high stress, pushy and negative. 

There is no respect for professional expertise and you are asked to do things the way your management wants them done, even if your way still complies with procedures-so there is no ownership of your own work. 

Overall I do not recommend Dexcom. It is possible that other groups have a very different dynamic than the one I am in; but all I know is my own experiences and I wanted to share them with you.

In my 3 years at Dexcom, the company underwent major expansion. The growing pains require employees to be flexible and open to constant change. My daily tasks included outbound calls to outside sales representatives, current and potential patients, doctor's offices, insurance companies and partnering distributors; educating patients on the product and process of obtaining it; gathering all necessary documentation required by insurance companies from the doctor's offices; obtaining authorization (if necessary) from insurance companies while maintaining guidelines; confirming orders with patients and ensuring successful delivery. On a management level, I felt that my coworkers and I could have been more successful with less involvement from supervisory teams. This was a struggle for all inside sales representatives collectively. The most enjoyable part of my job was knowing that the product I was selling would be saving the lives of many diabetics across the country, and at the very least, giving them the freedom and peace of mind to live a "normal" life. I also enjoyed my co-workers as many of us were recent college graduates early in our careers. Working at Dexcom taught me numerous sales skills that I am confident and eager to use moving forward.

Members of management could do NO WRONG! From terminations and discipline for speaking out about wrong doings, to not seeing a manager for MONTHS at a time! Go in, do your job, and say NOTHING about Managers who are completely absent, do not communicate urgent last minute changes that seem to happen hourly, and make sure if you're working here, it's 1st shift! Any other shift comes with no recognition, no support with issues, career development, or Human Resources involvement. Lastly, if you do talk to HR, understand that their 1st priority is not your complaint, but how to silence you from speaking against your superior manager, and when they can't do that, they will intentionally look for the smallest reasons to terminate you because it's less work than actually dealing with the problem, which their "growing pains" have left inexperienced individuals in charge of dealing with to begin with! Great medical tech company with an amazing purpose who will deliver outstanding results at the expense of their Supervisors and direct labor workers morale, career development, advancement, and sanity! Drastic changes in management and Human Resources is NEEDED IMMEDIATELY!

The good:

Pretty good culture, work environment & tools. Some great, smart people and managers and a pretty good base product.

The bad:

- Management is uncomfortable with newer technologies.
- Top executives bicker and carry our childish power-plays.
- Business charters / responsibilities are duplicated resulting in unnecessary/unhealthy competition and expenditures.
- The product roadmap is a web of changing dependencies that is constantly shifting, resulting in constant context-switches and supposed emergencies for many. Management cannot figure out a consistent direction.
- A couple of well-connected, self-agrandizing individuals whisper toxic criticisms that destroy successes and morale.

These factors combine to prevent good engineers from being able to produce quality business results, which frustrates everyone and makes the engineers look bad. Then, and what is most frustrating, is that the engineers are blamed for lack of performance and not producing results! 

Work here at your own risk.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Manufacturing associate 5 salaries reported	$22.20 per hour
Senior manufacturing associate 2 salaries reported	$24.83 per hour
Senior process engineer 1 salary reported	$121,850 per year
Process engineer 4 salaries reported	$133,975 per year
Intern 5 salaries reported	$29.80 per hour

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