process engineer

engineer

associate

quality engineer

product development engineer

W. L. Gore & Associates

Pros – -Most of the individual contributors are genuinely good people. They are friendly and helpful in any way they can help.
-The operations side of the company is so far behind compared to external companies that a halfway competent person could make big impacts.
-Some folks have a great work life balance and can take vacations and sick time throughout the year with no impact to their career or earnings.
-Pay is fair when you first join the company.
-The benefits package is on par with external companies.

Cons – -No work life balance for those in operations (professional and production associates) due to no processes, backups, or proper business planning. This is a direct reflection of poor/incompetent leadership.
-No standard processes or training for any of the new or new to the job associates (causes fires).
-Not a quality driven company. Most products I had experience with cannot be made the same way twice and product specs are vague at best. The company has a lot of scrap and waste and makes it up with its high margins.
-The most nepotistic company I have ever had the experience working at in my career. Many family members hired as they have direct relationships with leaders. The company hires based on who you know and not what you know unless they are in dire need of external help. Good ol’ boys network is alive and well at Gore along with the friends and family plan. “Successful” leaders have at least 3+ family members working within Gore (some have divorced and remarried internally in Gore).
-The company is very stingy on vacation and will tell you that you actually have more vacation then you had externally as you now have 2 weeks sick time that can be used. However, they don’t tell you that sick time will be used against you during compensation time if you use it for any reason.
- Leadership is very unethical. I have experienced business leaders using their position for personal gain with external vendors/businesses within the same industry.
-Leadership will also have conversations with you to find out ways to “improve” and if everything is going ok. However, they are looking for an ego stroke and for you to say that everything is great and what they are doing is the best thing since sliced bread. If you tell the truth, you will be quickly targeted as a poor performer and HR will be pulled in to start your exit process (unbeknownst to you). I have personally witnessed 2 examples of this situation in the past year.
-Leadership will also tread lightly on folks that are over 40 and are minorities due to fear of lawsuits.
- There are two types of folks who love it at Gore. All of the Industrial engineer new hires that are brought on board and nurtured by leadership to promote the Gore culture and are made to feel they are making a difference and the gore lifers who have 15+ years of service and are unable to function in any external company.
- Firefighting is rewarded and encouraged. 99% of these fires would be avoided if they had a clue about a quality culture.
- The company has internal marketing campaigns on how it is the best place to work and that you cannot go anywhere better than Gore. Those that came from external companies know better that to listen to this lie but it is a very useful retention tactic for Gore lifers as well as new associates.
- If you come up with a great business strategy for a project, your business/production/plant leader will take your project idea and give it to one of their “friends” so that they can be successful. You will be required to be a part of the team and drive these results but will not ever get the credit you deserve on the project.
-Career development is a joke. Most of the people that are in charge of developing you are lifetime Gore associates who have no idea on how to effectively run an operation, process or have the knowledge of external best business practices.
- The Lattice “Flat” structure is real within Gore but there are lattice layers with stairs between the layers (those that have the access to the stairs are good ol’ boys and are well connected).
- Leaders tend to be culture cheerleaders (human resources and company culture salespeople) and are not brought in for hard skills but rather selling the culture as real and that Gore is the best place to work.
- Note for external candidates: Gore will only post external roles that no one internally wants. Be wary of any external roles. If the role is not gravy enough for a family member than they will bring someone externally in to fulfill the role. Again, most of these positions will be due to very poor leadership decisions and lack of skill sets throughout the organization and they are in dire need of help. Once the help has been provided you will be expendable.
I would have loved to read a review like mine before accepting my position at Gore to know what I was getting into. Be cautious about accepting any role that is close to operations/engineering.

**The review applies only to Gore Medical**
W.L. Gore and Assoc. has to the potential to move from being a mediocre company to being a great company with a few changes.  First, even though they are a well established company their business model is still in its infancy and nowhere close to being a mature business model.  

Goer medical has a come from behind strategy.  They ride on the laurels of one product, until another company comes out with something better, then they start losing money, pressuring employees, cutting benefits, losing money on the employees internal stock plan.

The majors issues with Gore Medical is that they cannot keep quality associates that they need to keep them ahead of the game because of the cult like culture and of the location. They lose PhD chemists in a week because their families don't want to stuck in the middle of nowhere.  The culture and benefits that you read about on their website, do not apply to Gore Medical in Flagstaff and management will even tell you that (after you are hired of course).

I worked as an IT associate there and had never seen a turnover percentage rate as high as theirs.  The pay low in comparison with comparable companies and Flagstaff has a very high cost of living.  There is little to no opportunity for advancement.  Once you are hired you will be told that your outside experience does not matter at Gore, so even if you have 15 yrs of experience you are treated as a new hire.

They need to make some serious changes to their upper management and the direction their company is taking.  They need to learn how to keep their advantage in the marketplace instead of having a huge up and down cycle that repeats itself every 10-15 yrs.  They need to learn for experienced hire and accept that sometimes the experienced hires may see things that can be changed for the better, whether it be processes, improvements, or saving the company money.  They need to learn that sometimes an associate saying it can't be done, is reason to reevaluate, not to dismiss or demote the associate.  Which has been done to many folks across the BU.

This is a place where if you are not a part of the "Good ole boys" network, it is best just to keep you head down and do your job.  Nepotism runs rampant throughout Medical.  Do expect that if you do not spend at least 30% of your time talking with everyone in your department you will only do average, as the employee rating have nothing to do with job performance or skill, but is a popularity contest.  If you any thing negative or rate something a 0 out of 5 on your annual anonymous culture review, be prepared to be talked to by HR and your leader.

Technology wise in IT they are at least a decade behind the industry average.

If you can work in this culture and like living in a small town environment in the middle of nowhere, then you will love the company as many of the people who come here directly out of college and know no different do.

Pros

- core culture value of "trust of the individual" means that T&E, vacation and other key business processes and policies are built around trust and honor system.
- great place to flex your skills if you're an engineer.
- generally great people, strong well-defined culture and respect for each other.
- good pay and good benefits, including direct 401K contributions and stock ownership program.
- good vacation, health coverage and usually not difficult to attend key industry trade shows or conferences related to your job. Great internal training programs include how to work with other countries/cultures, and good communication, trust and other such type classes.
- global company, so depending on your role, you get to do some travel and broaden your experience.
- lots of freedom to grow, learn and develop yourself.
- offices are generally outside major metro areas, so no traffic and good low cost real estate available if you're relocating. Great places to raise a family of that's where you are in life.

Cons

- because of flat, decentralized org structure (power of small teams), some key global or divisional decisions can be difficult to make.
- too much "consensus" decision making (org is working to correct and change this).
- poor decision making clarity and accountability between regional teams and from global leaders.
- Across most businesses, the regions are silo'd creating duplicate work and challenges to decision making.
- legacy IT systems...LOTs of them.It's really hard to get IT support.
- over-capacity IT means its hard to get things done or have the right tools.
- traditional legacy thinking and infrastructure when it comes to sales and marketing teams.
- career paths are murky at best, or non-existent most usually.
- old, old faculties with non-existent decor.
- poor decision making processes and lack of accountability due to culture norms.
- lots of heavy PR about being "great place to work" is a bit over-inflated, creating a gap with reality.
- office locations are all rural for the most part. Not great if the country life is not for you.
- Weak leadership too afraid to make hard decisions, unable to drive clarity.
- Ambition and drive is punished. Complacency is unintentionally rewarded.

Pro's - good work/life balance, PTO is generous, little micromanagement from leaders in Engineering - a good place for low-mid performers to coast with minimal oversight. Devices are high quality and life changing (those that make it past the 50% process yield... anyways)

Con's - little oversight or direction from leadership means you won't get much support when you need to escalate issues, and you won't know if you're underperforming until it becomes too late. Not a great place if you aren't a self-starter or are introverted, as the company culture relies heavily (or "used to rely") on internal networking to learn roles, get help, etc.

The Major Con - Company/division structure and leadership has undergone major changes within the last 2 years - with sweeping cuts to functions and redefining positions/roles - and they keep coming. Long term employees and leaders are being forced out, both voluntarily and involuntarily. Medical Engineers and other support staff are being reassigned to other roles (i.e. R&D engineers forced to support manufacturing production) or being forced out. Old executive leadership is being let go in favor of hiring typical external executives from Fortune 500 companies running the C-suite circuit. Leadership seems more concerned with overhauling to company structure and boosting stock price, likely to prepare for an acquisition by a bigger fish.

Summary - I've enjoyed working at Gore for 90% of the time that I've worked here (10+ years). But I wouldn't recommend it currently with the sweeping changes, impending culture "refresh" (i.e. redefine the unique culture to fit typical corporate slop), and lack of transparency from leadership. If you want to come aboard, know that you are joining during a time where the company is restructuring. Some of the cuts and change to business strategy are long overdue, but leadership will struggle to explain the purpose and long term vision - just need "year-over-year growth" any way we can get it. If you're okay with that or bring the typical external Fortune 100/500 corporate experience, you might have a chance to thrive here.

I worked a total of 10yrs for the company. It was a privately owned medical device company and Gore acquired the company a few years after I started to work there. I use to enjoy going to work everyday til I started to get pressured into the companies deep culture and a zillion other culture related programs and clubs or whatever else plant manager, cell leader or anyone higher up or other clusters came up with. The constant interruptions during working hours for meetings and other non emergency issues that keeps workers from doing their jobs. One of the main issues was the constant push of company culture and how we have to be part of it whether we agree on it or not. Leaders, Plant managers and anyone that's from office area would preach about company culture and how we have to follow it but, I've witness countless of times themselves violating that culture themselves. The company started to feel like a religious cult and if you violate you will get frowned upon. Workers constantly running to cell leader complaining about other workers and not doing one on one communication with each other. If cell leaders find you different then the rest of the workers you become a target and they will try to get rid of you and not follow company culture and contact your sponsor and talk about the issues. You will be pulled from your dept. and bought to a conference room you end up sitting in a room with your cell leader,plant manager and Human resource and your left wondering what's going on . Your sponsor nowhere in sight and or have any knowledge of what's going on, a direct violation of company culture. You maybe great at doing your job and making great product but if you don't heel to their culture and paint a smile on your face for 8 yrs or more like a stepford wife then you have no chance in this company. Benefits are great but environment isn't pleasant.

In principle, most of W. L. Gore may be a good place to work. However, the culture is changing, and some of the values envisioned by the founder are struggling to survive. New leadership is creating the culture change, and there is more conflict and dissatisfaction than from earlier times. The lattice structure is still somewhat intact, however that as well as the values of Freedom and Fairness are being threatened. The ranking system has evolved into a popularity contest. Many lifetime friends get together to rank others within a group, and it often perceived that the best way to look better is to make others look bad. It is a real life Survivor, and these alliances have existed for many years. Married couples are not allowed to rank each other, and this should be the same for these lifetime alliances. Also, leadership is evolving into a culture that installs command and control bosses. The new leader strictly controlled what each group member was allowed to do, and this will prove to be detrimental to all in the long run. This may have been specific to my group though. Another issue is that HR is controlled by leadership, and when the conflicts arise, HR will always take the side of the leaders. The associate is left without a voice.

To clarify, not all of Gore may be like this. The people in my group had been with each other for 20 - 25 years, and an outsider to the group has never been welcome. There is a certain dominating and ominous philosophy within this group that is unappealing to most. However my willingness to accept even the most difficult challenges, as well as the probability for success in several of the key corporate projects kept me associated with this group for too long. Not sure of the reasons for the actions within this group, be it professional jealousy or intimidation from the success on top projects, but in the end the separation was desired by both sides, and I lost respect for Gore and my group's unethical practices.

Every work area and building is different and tends to govern themselves for the most part. Inconsistencies with work and cultural practices are very common and can be frustrating on a day to day basis.

Manufacturing operators work in clean rooms with full or partial gowns. The day starts with a brief cross shift meeting and a work station cleaning. Standard Operating Procedures are followed to construct and/or inspect product. Goals are set for the shift which need to be met by end of shift. Meetings are very common and are often intrusive with meeting daily goals.

You learn a great deal about the products and procedural documents are constantly being updated. You never really stop learning and relearning processes which can be frustrating due to constant change. Overall, the work is very monotonous. I often lost track of time and dates because the days just blurred together. You will also be pushed to take on more responsibilities without a guarantee of compensation.

Proper cultural practices are pushed on you constantly. I felt the culture was not fully understood by leaders who preached it or that they had there own interpretation that deviated from it's original concept. Basically, the culture was broken and misunderstood. Personally I felt the need to abolish the culture all together and start fresh.

Overall Gore is a good place to work. I learned a lot about business and production flow. It's pretty decent pay for the work but it's not without it's downsides when it comes to day to day work life. Some associates are perfectly content while others just endure because it's Gore, it's best job you can have....

I was extremely excited to work here, as I was an avid user of the products they were making and the job description matched my abilities perfectly.

The work itself was enjoyable. Operating machinery and micromanaging cells, with clearly laid out realtime metrics for productivity gave satisfaction and goals to strive for each day. There was a part of the team that truly believed in that word, TEAM, and I was thrilled to work together and come to each other's aide. However there was an overwhelming damper on all this from issues stemming with this location's specific culture that didn't add up.

Long story short, I felt insulted from management, never had a proper introduction to the team, felt ridiculed when bringing attention to some issues and everyday had a fairly drab atmosphere, with people constantly talking about looking for a new place to work, right from the first meeting of the day. 

Some of my co-workers were exceptional people to work with, and I really enjoyed the training and support I received from them, but I was very confused by the structure and dissonance. Half of the people were quite content, the other half seemed to have dealt with another side of management, me included, that felt insulting and that undermined trust and faith in the company overall. 

It seems to be this location specifically. I hear overwhelmingly better things from the building just across the street, so do not judge the company as a whole from this review. However, this was one of the worst experiences I had from a professional career environment. Dare I say I was treated unequally, and with a bit of prejudice on top of personal situations that I tried to make transparent in good faith. 

A great shame overall.

My typical day would include a morning briefing from leaders and engineering about objectives and tasks. Our team would then start to work and manufacture product. We would typically have entire team meetings about twice a week and have individual meetings when needed to complete side projects. I learned a vast set of skills pertaining to leadership, training, lean manufacturing, and time management. Leadership skills include leadership through followership, setting the example, and conflict resolution. Training skills include how to match where a learner is on the learning curve with the corresponding teaching. Lean manufacturing was introduced to our company to become more efficient and effective. Our continuous improvement objectives never stopped and would empower our team to resolve solutions. The hardest part of the job would be the monotonous daily manufacturing of just sitting there at our work stations building product. The most enjoyable part of the job was getting to know my co-workers and making the work as enjoyable as possible. Working on projects and being empowered to make a difference was also an important factor to me that made the job more enjoyable. We would also celebrate milestones and had a yearly get together with all associates that worked in the Phoenix, AZ cluster. I also got really good at ping pong because we played nearly every single day after we ate lunch. Overall, this was the best company I have ever worked for and I walked away with skills, knowledge, and experience that are transferrable to nearly any job and everyday life.

W.L. Gore is one of the best companies I've worked for. The culture is great. There's a lot of people who will help you grow and improve. There is potential for advancement but more for some than others. Being a fast learner and having a high aptitude was a huge benefit for me and I got to enjoy working in multiple areas with multiple teams across many of the plants. Some of the areas practiced the culture very well while some did not. I recommend kill them with kindness no matter where you are. You will work with some great people here and you'll work with some that think they're greater than what they really are. Just because someone is an Engineer doesn't' mean they know what they're doing don't be surprised if they throw blame of their mistakes onto someone else.

If you are female or minority and bust your tail you'll have the best chance of advancement. This is a good thing because you can end up in a good position with little to no experience and people will help you along the way. Unfortunately the negative side to this is you get some people with big egos because they think they've accomplished something major even if their skills are mediocre to poor.

If you're considered a Caucasian male and have good skills you're not only going to have to bust your tail to stick out but your're also going to need degrees or certificates in the field you want to apply for. Even then don't be surprised if you don't get the position. 

Typically working hard and going above and beyond will get you places. People usually do notice.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Process engineer 13 salaries reported	$101,238 per year
Engineer 5 salaries reported	$132,200 per year
Associate 11 salaries reported	$131,909 per year
Quality engineer 8 salaries reported	$110,009 per year
Product development engineer 3 salaries reported	$132,000 per year

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