iota Biosciences reviews about "benefit"

Leadership is horrible. They can’t make a decision to save their life. What they say is their plan and their execution and prioritization does not ever align. If you work here expect to have to constantly change priorities and extremely tight deadlines. It is a very high stress environment that is very volatile. The quality team has a lot of strong opinionated personalities so quality approval on any design changes is impossible to achieve. The requirements for quality approval is constantly changing and differs depending on who you get as a quality reviewer.

Management, from the top down

Even if you meet every deliverable and goal ahead of schedule and are a key contributor to the success of the projects under development, you have zero job security at iota. Consider yourself a temp, even if you are hired on as an FTE. The VC funding iota relies on is too unpredictable to provide any sort of job security.

1. Problems with investments due to macro-economic trends has led to layoff of more than 50% employees in last 6 months

Yes, it's hard work, but the product is honestly life changing. And this work/life balance is typical in a startup.

Many pivots over their history. The focus on bladder stimulation now puts iota on strong and stable footing. They've pretty much dropped the pretense around use of ultrasound.

There is a lack of transparency throughout the company, as is evident from other Glassdoor reviews - reviews seem to be bimodal (even ignoring the comically fake 5 star reviews). Those who attempt to understand the underpinnings of the company see failure points everywhere. Those content with their day-to-day work are happy with the pay and benefits provided. It would be prudent for people working at iota start to ask "why" events occur and not "what" events occur. Why are people leaving? Why are company re-orgs happening? Why are founding engineers resigning? This company's success thus far is largely due to the ICs who work tirelessly; in some cases over 100 hrs/wk to meet seemingly insurmountable deadlines. Over and over again, iota has been positively rewarded for poor management skills at the expense of ICs being worked into the ground. Rather than praising those ICs, management is rewarded with undue promotions and increased responsibility. The lack of management training at iota is palpable in every meeting, email, Slack message, and even breakroom conversation. Communication skills are lackluster to put it politely and questions are more often than not answered with "we are figuring it out." Meetings are inefficient and often agenda-less. The feedback written here is nothing new. These issues have been raised to upper management and HR. The lack of positive change is concerning and speaks to the negligence of proper management.

Inexperienced senior leadership. Significant discrimination from the CEO towards different departments working on two active projects, with some departments treated as the superior ones while they try to hide it. Recent layoffs of over 40 employees, with another round expected soon. Many talented individuals are leaving each week. After speaking with various people, most express frustration with the constantly changing priorities and objectives. Astellas, the parent company, appears uncertain about how to proceed with Iota despite IDE approval, and they’re gradually cutting the budget. It feels like a sinking ship.

I think based on some of the reviews from some folks that may not have worked elsewhere there may not be a good appreciation for how good folks have it here. That's a complete shame to see that- it is not deserved.