BIOVIA Reviews

Pros

The individuals who work for the company are terrific. It is incredibly gratifying to know that your work is contributing to making the world a healthier, better place. The CEO and many of the executives are very nice and approachable.

Cons

BIOVIA focuses its business too much on one or two customers, to the detriment of their other customers and some of their products. Everyone is well meaning, but they rush into decisions without thinking them through and then have to rework when they realize they missed something. The parent company culture at times borders on abusive. One minute everything is sunshine and roses, and the next moment meetings devolve into shouting matches. Employees are often treated like they are interchangeable with no unique skills.

Pros

Ability to work with smart people to deliver cutting-edge scientific and engineering software for modeling, simulation, laboratory and data science applications in a flexible environment.

Cons

A lot of recent change due to acquisition, but this is settling down now.

Pros

Compensation is fair and there is generally not a lot of overtime work required. There is a gym, a basketball court, and kitchen snacks.

Cons

BIOVIA, formerly Accelrys, is the re-branded result of an acquisition by Dassault Systèmes a few years ago. Accelrys was by no means a perfect company, but even the most entrenched BIOVIA employee will admit that things have gotten progressively worse post-acquisition. Employee stress is up, morale is on the decline, and the company has gone through several waves of attrition over the past few years. What little office culture that once existed is all but gone, and several key personnel have gone with it. From an R&D perspective the company has fallen into a pattern of customer-driven development, much to the frustration of staff. R&D isn't being given the time and space to innovate, but rather is being forced to adhere to customer-imposed requirements and deadlines. It is simply not a sustainable, let alone scaleable, way to do business. The current CEO, Leif Pederson, leaves a bit to be desired when it comes to a C-Level executive. He is someone you see once a month at the all-hands meeting. In several all-hands meetings he's commented that "if someone on the (customer) project needs coffee, go get them coffee". Probably a poor attempt at humor, but It's incredibly tacky, and it's clear to employees that in his mind you're simply a resource. Leif: perhaps you yourself should be walking around handing out coffee, and taking the time to get to know the people that work hard to ensure that you have a company to lead and product to sell. You appear out-of-touch and uncaring and you should work to address this. There is an employee happiness survey that employees are strongly encouraged (because Dassault wants it done) to take every year. You would be hard-pressed to find concrete examples of positive changes resulting from that survey. It simply feels like HR checking off a box. Career growth is practically non-existent. There is little investment in growing employees talents and skills, or helping employees progress their careers. The push by parent company Dassault towards their proprietary technology stack is met with little enthusiasm by the rank and file. Generally benefits are OK. Pay is close to market, but given the competition for talent in the area it's surprising the company doesn't do more to retain employees. No company equity, and the stock purchase program went away in the acquisition. No bonuses for non-sales employees aside from an incentive-based pay plan which holds back a portion of your salary until a once-a-year payout. That means no 401k match on that portion of your pay, and no partial payout if you leave the company during the year ahead of the payout. Employees can typically expect a 1-3% raise annually.

Pros

You get a paycheck, barely.

Cons

Let me tell you this about working at Biovia. You will find me at the end of a freeway offramp with a cardboard sign begging at change before you would find me working at that place again.

Pros

Strives to be Icarus and has lovely aspirations to be the Apple of Biotech.

Cons

Horrible hodgepodge of software packages that claim to be "interoperable" but provide a really horrible user experience.

Pros

Great outlook when it comes to the market demand and the opportunities that are present with the backing of Dassault Systemes. An ongoing integration with DS has been happening that is clearly positive for BIOVIA in the long run. The corporate facilities are very good, and there is opportunity for growth. People are nice and it's a good environment to be in. They want to listen, which is positive (but it come with hefty price if you are not aligning your opinions).

Cons

There is a lack of communication within the company, and there has been recent changes in exec/management roles and the general structure of the organization. The new CEO (Leif Pedersen) has been trying a transparent approach of monthly company-wide meetings to share the company's progress. It's clear that many people have been dissatisfied with the general direction of the company, as many of the most outspoken people have been leaving the company. There is still a battle between the legacy approach of managing and building the BIOVIA products and services, and the new Dassault Systemes approach, which has incredibly slow and process oriented management and implementation procedures (waterfall in its worst shape and form) that slow every single project down. There are (too) many meetings between different management and development teams, and a clear lack of adoption of new technology and forward movement with tangible solutions rather than going back and forth with strategies that eventually do not pan out due to change of direction from big daddy (Dassault Systemes). There is a slight tug of war between some managers that try to deflect ownership and responsibility, and some people that will take over responsibilities from individuals (as in "you are not capable, so I shall take over from here on.."). The environment is not "young and fresh", and most employees are long-timers, so they are very stubborn with their own approach of executing projects and tasks, and there is an evident isolation of newcomers and younger employees. New ideas and strategies are simply not well received, and there is very little flexibility on out-of-the-box approaches. There is no apparent culture in the company, and the organization is aligning itself more to the Dassault Systemes "unstructured structure" facilitation of information that is rather slow and ambivalent when it comes to the BIOVIA brand.

Pros

Strong pedigree in field Many talented individuals Some very good products

Cons

Management Silos within organization Lack of product integration Slow to release products Poor quality when released Loss of customer focus