manufacturing associate

research associate

scientist

senior research associate

staff scientist

TWIST BIOSCIENCE

Twist is not a good place to work. Middle and upper management is incompetent and shows a lot of favoritism. When you try to ask them questions, they give a non-answer or dodge the question altogether. It is very clear that manufacturing associates are not valued or listened to, even though we are the ones making them their money.

Like a lot of Bay Area founded companies, they spend a lot of money and effort on trying to create the illusion of a cool, fun, laid-back work environment. This money would be much better spent actually giving employees raises and promoting those who deserve it. The work environment is actually too laid-back, because mistakes, even easily avoided ones that cost the company millions, are tolerated to no end.

There is very little room for upward mobility or career growth here. They will tell you they "can't afford" promotions or to pay market rate wages for biotech. They can sure afford to waste money on unnecessary things though, and give huge bonuses to higher level employees. There is also almost no mobility from night shift to day shift.

The only upside of working here was that I liked the people that I worked with directly.

Working as a manufacturing associate at twist has been in a great opportunity to learn a lot about the process of producing synthetic genes. As a manufac. you’re moved around the department to learn new processes and the work never becomes boring. I’ve seen many employees grow in this department. When I got hired 3 employees from manufacturing went a few steps up the ladder, and that’s why I got hired. Although there’s a lot of work and it can be somewhat fast paced, there is always down time, and surprisingly these employees have the choice to just stay on the laptops as they wait for their processes to complete, but instead they ask their supervisor to give them more work to do. It’s very motivating and refreshing to see this. It shows too that employees are motivated to work during the entire 12 hours. All in all, it’s a great place to gain a lot of experience, a great environment and culture, and the overtime you get paid is REALLY great.

Definitely the worst biotech company I’ve ever worked for. Management doesn’t know what they’re doing and they don’t care about their employees. Toxic work culture that incentivizes people to work against each other. For manufacturing associates the pay is not great and overall it’s not much of a step up from working at an Amazon warehouse. Last year they layed off a quarter of the company slashed raises/promotions and yet upper management still received there bonuses.

Pros
- Daily app delivered lunches with a stipend (at least at South San Francisco site for on-site folks)
- Most of the colleagues are smart, dedicated, good, and trustworthy
- 50% match on 401k contributions up to 3%
- Very cool technology

Cons
- Incompetent upper management
- Unrealistic, high-pressure project timelines
- Favoritism
- Lack of recognition, especially for lab work
- Few opportunities for career or professional development
- Poor communication, especially cross functionally
- Poor onboarding experience

Can be independent but when something goes wrong, you are not allowed to troubleshoot on your own and make decisions, very fun work culture but company doesn't value hard work, just looking good

What is the best part of working at the company?
It is a multicultural place to work. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Managers always want more from you, but it is “hard” for them to give you raises. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It is a unique place to Work. A lot of nice people.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
You know. Another day another dollar.

Night shift give space to grow and experience on making hard calls in production as quality assurance team is not available. Was given a temp to hire position but contract was extended then was followed by a mass lay off. Because of contract extension instead of being converted, there were no severance given for being laid off.  If given a temp position offer, I personally would not recommend working here.  

A few issues in terms of lower level mngmt, but overall the environment was relatively inclusive. The vibe is fun with music and friendly staff.  The work hours are long on the Manufacturing floor, but the work weeks make up for it alternative scheduling.  Mngmt needs improvement but the team is friendly.

One of the worst companies I've worked for in my career. The leadership and business owners exhibited very poor management. Additionally, the company hired employees with mental disorders but management failed to provide proper support, resulting in a negative work environment.

Favoritism runs high here, beware. Management won't backfill roles, so any extra work gets piled on the remaining lab operators - they should hire more people but choose to overwork the lab operators. There is a lot of potential for growth at Twist but it can get competitive. And because the teams are so large, it is difficult to feel seen/recognized. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Manufacturing associate 12 salaries reported	$23.33 per hour
Research associate 7 salaries reported	$77,055 per year
Scientist 9 salaries reported	$137,410 per year
Senior research associate 11 salaries reported	$104,747 per year
Staff scientist 10 salaries reported	$157,560 per year

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