Merck Research Laboratories is a great place to work with flex hours and strong sense of community. - Medicinal Chemist Merck Employee Review

4.0
25 Jul 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The facilities are top notch. There is an onsite gym with complimentary gym clothes wash and dry. There are flexible work hours to accommodate people with families or who need to adopt an early or late schedule. There is a strong sense of community there and the feel is that people are happy to work there. There is also a shuttle from the NJ Transit -Rahway station to the Rahway site so taking public transportation is easy.

Cons

At the time, there were only 2 weeks of vacation, but I believe that has changed to make it more competitive with other companies. The onsite gym membership is not free but comparable to outside gym membership.

Explore other reviews about Merck

5.0
29 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Benefits and pay are great

Cons

Depends on manager and organization is how your experience and work life balance will be

4.0
30 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great benefits like medical/dentist/vision, pension, stock option, 401k match. Co workers are excellent, pretty good on site symposiums, lot of diversity clubs/activities. Innovation is extremely welcomed. Diversity in research portfolio. AI/ML is heavily invested to make databases more efficient.

Cons

Micro managing, especially within the biologics department, potentially others. Promotions are limited, and pay bump is poor. Company invests too much in buying companies rather than keeping talent - lay offs let go of great talented people. Merck is afraid of investing into exploratory biology and doesn’t take risk - they even admit they would rather see other companies clinical data or R&D data rather than taking a risk. Although it’s slow going in building new software, current databases are slow and needs much improvement. Extremely poor work/life balance.

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