Pros
There are not many pro's to speak of with the company or the location.
Cons
The site is 60+ years old, largely run down, lacking windows to the point where I hardly see the sun despite being an office employee, and only accessable by highway forcing a car commute. The site has a really unsettling "factory vibe" that is not acceptable compared to modern office or laboratory archeticure. The drab surroundings rub off on the employees (myself especially) and the late fall-early spring is exceptionally depressing since there is no sun before/after work and you are completely insulated from windows in most of the office/work spaces. The site doesn't even have a real lunch room with hot food despite having ~1000 employees, its just a few refrigerators/freezers and a handfull of shelves with snacks. Many people have worked there over 2 or 3 acquisitions (10-30 years) and so rumors abound. There is a generally cliquish atmosphere that you will experience if you haven't been in the "veteran" group for at least 5-10 years, often hearing stories about people screwing up a decade ago and never being forgivenen even if the offense was marginal or unintentional. This bleeds into career progression, and an even larger risk for the company- cultural and scientific stagnation. These "veterans" only know how to do something one or two ways and change is anathema to them, which is both culturally stiffling and indirectly reduces revenue because "hierloom" (or rather outdated-poorly justified) inefficiencies, perspectives, and technological methodology are taken for granted. Many people are willing to go to war to keep things the way the have always been even if its against current best practice, more ineffecient, or even opposed to current regulatory expectations. This pervades the leadership culture, and making any inquiry/comment contrary to these trends can permantly stiffle your career progress and entrance into the clique dominated by CDMO lifers who never worked for a successful pharma or biotech company a day in their life. Bonuses are unheard of for people outside of management, which is actually highly contrasted with the regions greatest job market-engineering-where even low level engineers are given 4-5 figure annual bonuses on top of the nice gifts/events offered to them throughout the year. The salary progression is paltry, I am paid in the bottom 10% of employees with my qualifications in my field. Many managers are also incredibly poorly equiped to develop people due to Catalent historically being a backwater for low skilled workers in low cost of living areas (verified, not just a perception) which leads to leadership being a function of attrition rather than being based in intellectual prowsess, technical skill, or exceptional development of their direct reports. This is not where you go to build an exciting career that will take you to prestigeous companies doing cutting edge science. This is simple a cost center outpost in a prinvincial backwater, and your immediate experience/career trajectory/salary growth will be commensurate to these factors. To summarize, this location is treated like a low cost sweatshop for the rubes that don't know anybetter despite employing many intelligent people with strong scientific education. Its unfortunate how far the site has fallen from a premier employer under the Kauffman family to its current state as a crumbling location, for people who just don't have any better options.
