senior scientist

scientist

associate director

director

principal scientist

AstraZeneca

I successfully supported various administrative activities, such as; travel arrangements, meeting arrangements, coordination of SharePoint site, visitor arrangements and meetings on a regular day to day basis whilst studying for formal NVQ Qualifications on a half day per week basis.  

I learned that in order to achieve the throughput of work required, flexibility is one of the key benefits. I also learned that the best approach to help achieve this is by adopting a cheerful, positive, co-operative, and professional attitude and since being in the work place I have gained patience and discretion, tact and diplomacy which I consider as life skills. 

Despite my self sufficiency, I feel that my mentor/manager and my co-workers provided the appropriate and most beneficial guidance in order to help support me in achieving and obtaining my NVQ Qualifications. I also feel that I was treated and managed equally to my colleagues, peers, assessors and my mentor. 

I found providing administrative support to the department to be quite challenging at times due to different personalities and different ways of working but I learned to adapt to the different personalities and ways of working and adopted a cheerful, positive, co-operative, and professional attitude and since being in the work place I have gained patience and discretion, tact and diplomacy which I consider as life skills. The most challenging part of my job was  the application and interview process, but undertaking it and attaining the position developed my self-confidence and made me more determined to pursue my passion for working for such a reputable company and within such a challenging business sector.

I enjoyed my job simply because I was working, earning and learning all at the same time, the people were great and the work place was a busy, positive, vibrant workplace which helped maintain motivation in completing a broad workload and in general.

I worked at AstraZeneca for approximately 2 years. I received no training or introduction to the company, and was provided only with a broken laptop and nowhere to work.  I was expected to define my own role, training, identify groups to work with, and deliver high impact on projects with a quantifiable cash benefit to the organization.

Later, I was assigned a line manager from an unrelated department who had no training or experience in the field I was working on.  I was provided with no training, mentoring, guidance, feedback, coaching, or support of any kind and was merely facilitating the advancement of another into management.

The group I worked in was brow beaten by management and there was no group cohesion or identity of any kind.  A strong culture of blame from senior management resulted in a suspicious and Machiavellian nature in colleagues, resulting in frequent in-fighting.

The hardest part of the job was creating "pull" from the research projects I was to provide a service for.  There was a lack of credibility for the group within the organization, but this wasn't acknowledged by management.  

Appraisal time was very similar to Alan Sugar's Apprentice board room finale.  Colleagues hurled abuse and blame at each other over a period of weeks to avoid the management's sword of Damocles.  It was embarrassing to be a part of the organization, observing colleagues slandering each others reputation to mitigate themselves from failings that should have been levied squarely at management.

The most enjoyable part of my job was building an autonomous working relationship with experimental groups.  2 years of weekly meetings were required before even the slightest personal relationship could be fostered across the divide of suspicion and fear.

I had the privilege of working at AstraZeneca during a challenging time, and I must say it was an incredibly positive experience. My team was nothing short of amazing, especially considering the circumstances of working on a project during the Covid pandemic.

One of the standout aspects of working at AstraZeneca was the excellent work-life balance afforded to us. The four days on, four days off working scheme allowed for ample time to both focus on our work and pursue our personal activities. This structure truly enhanced our productivity and well-being.

I cannot praise our managers enough for their leadership style. They trusted us to take ownership of our work and come up with solutions when challenges arose, rather than micromanaging every detail. Additionally, during a difficult period of redundancies, they went above and beyond by mentoring us and helping us improve our CVs to pursue other opportunities. Their support during this transition was invaluable and truly demonstrated their commitment to the well-being and success of their team members.

Overall, my time at AstraZeneca was characterized by a supportive team, a healthy work-life balance, and exceptional management. I am grateful for the experience and would highly recommend AstraZeneca as an employer.

Dependent upon the team and area of the business, AstraZeneca can be a great place to work.  However, worklife balance is hard to achieve with limited and prescribed flexibility.  Agile/flexible working parameters are now very strict and limited which can be tricky for those with childcare needs or long commutes.

Management can be both very forward thinking, but also somewhat traditionalist, which conflicts with modern life and approaches.

The business has excellent values and ethics, are extremely inclusive and have great diversity.  Career progression is also excellent.  

AstraZeneca is very dynamic and has an incredibly dedicated and capable workforce with a passion for delivering life changing medicines to patients.  They can be inspirational and pride in your work and personal success/reward is a given, but the Leaders are not as good at looking after their people or creating a positive working environment/culture.

A typical work day involved working on the QC methods for Monoclonal Antibody Products. Methods range from simple UV assay to get the protein concentration to more complex procedures of determining charge proteins using iCEF. Other methods involved were SEC by HPLC and Bioanalyser and compendial methods for antibodies.

At AZ, I have learned about the process of transferring methods from one lab to other and how to troubleshoot the assays with minimum help from sending labs. The management provided a greater flexibility and updated me time to time with respect to the progress of the transfer via meetings.

Staff at AZ was supportive and provided a every possible help during the execution of transfers. Although the methods were developed and validated at sending unit, they posed unique challenges when ran on systems in receiving site i.e AZ Liverpool. Resolving issues surrounding those problems was challenging. The role involved a training at sister site in the US with excellent lab facilities. I enjoyed working in AZ US facilities and was content with the information provided on the wider method transfer strategy.

During my employment with AstraZeneca I progressed through different roles.  When I first joined AstraZeneca my role as a cleaning operative was to ensure all equipment was prepared and packaged in a sterile environment to meet with FDA standards.  I was required to follow numerous standard operating procedures covering areas such as: cleaning of the work environment, dress discipline, equipment preparation ensuring that all relevant health and safety requirements were met. My career then progressed and my role changed to Navigation Trainer.  I was involved with the implementation and training of personnel on the SAP system.  This project lasted for just over 2 years.  After the full implementation of SAP I then took a position of PA / IT System Controller role servicing a number of line and senior managers.  Daily duties included diary management, organising meetings and travel requirements for overseas colleagues, general administration such as typing of confidential document and reports.  I was also involved in the planning of new operating system liaising with directors and overseas contractors for roll out of any new IT Systems.

I have been at AstraZeneca for just over a year, and it has been a great journey so far.
Scientifically, my experience has been extremely valuable. One of the reasons for joining the industry was to learn new things, such as different drug targets and classes. At AstraZeneca, I have gained a much better understanding of the discovery pipeline and the effort required to turn molecules into medicines. In addition, the opportunities I have gained to work on different projects simultaneously would simply not have been possible in academia.
On a personal level, I have the opportunity to interact and be supported by some brilliant colleagues, and have been able to develop into a much stronger team player. I have also been involved as a representative in helping to build a post-doc community at Alderley Park – and beyond – over the last few months. This has given me the opportunity to meet other post-docs socially and find out more about the projects they are working on. I am quite positive that the experience I have gained so far and in the time to follow would make me a better candidate for the future job opportunities in the pharma industries.

It's a very big location with a colourful scenery, but behind the doors, it's more black & white. The environment is dreadfully volatile where you'll be dealing a variety of "tough customers", which are basically people who are out of touch with reality with a high sense of self-worth and the hobby of using your (and everyone else's) inadequacies to make themselves feel superior, while clinging onto authority.

I'm surrounded by a decent team  and I'm sure you will as well, but keep in mind; when things go wrong (even at the slightest), there will be a lot of finger-pointing and animosity, but this is because every type of management don't give an ounce of support to staff members as if all this talk about health (mental, physical & safety) are illusions.

Other than that, the salary here is very satisfying, not to mention the overtime pay is just out of the world.

I'd like working here, but gradually, it's becoming very far from a mature and professional workplace. So if you want something more out of this facility than just excellent money, I wouldn't recommend it for you. 

Typical day of work is always overloaded with excessive work to do, gathered a lot of experience working cross functionally in a global team, management is so poor as managers do mice manage a alot and work place culture is also great, the hardest part of the job is demand to work early morning as 6am and working late as 10pm without been paid for it, also you traveling for business purpose without been re-imbursed for it however AZ pay is extremely bad even when  some new micro ltd company who are just starting up will pay much more and no good work life balance plus zero flexibility, most managers do not have the experience and they do not know what they doing and all they do is to push all their task to you as the contract staff with bad pay.

- Daily challenges with changes to meetings, request for meetings/conferences, etc.
- Over the 8 years with AZ, I have learned how to project manage big events in several locations with several different Executives. 
- There have been lots of changes to top management with AZ since I've been here and the new CEO is doing a great job in ensuring that AZ follows the ethos of bringing science to the patients.
- Within IR team where I work, I have seen lots of changes in the whole team. Everyone brings a different perspective and ideas, which is always good.
- The hardest part of the job, is staying on top of all the changes within organising meetings/conferences, etc.
- The most enjoyable part of the job is the daily challenges and not knowing what is going to come up next, along with organising the events.

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