Alector Careers, Benefits, Review

Diversity is at the root of Alector's culture and success. We pride ourselves on our team's diversity of culture, background, family, and thought. High-performing, multi-disciplinary teams who bring a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences to our work are best poised to challenge each other’s assumptions with fresh perspectives, resulting in creative, boundary-pushing ideas that take us further than we could ever go alone. We are committed to building an open, diverse, supportive, and inclusive environment for everyone at Alector. We welcome and embrace people of all backgrounds and experiences.

We pride ourselves on being deep listeners and not just responsive but proactive when it comes to employee needs. Our offerings come from listening to our team members’ needs through regular surveys and open dialogue. Employee feedback is embraced at all levels of the organization and drives every aspect of our strategic direction.

Percent of the company that identify as:

• Female: 64%
• Parents or Caregivers: 42%
• LGBTQ+: 10%
• Asian: 40%
• Indian: 10%
• Black or African American: 2%
• Hispanic or Latino: 8%
• Middle Eastern: 2%
• White: 43%
• Two or more races: 7%
• Other: 8%

Examples of programs that support our team:

• 10 weeks of paid leave for all new parents from natural birth to surrogacy, to adoption, our team members take the time to invest in their growing families.
• Maven, our fertility and early development through childhood benefit, includes access to education, free specialists, and $10,000 in reimbursable expenses. 
• Tilt is our leave management partner that specializes in easing transitions for parents and teams and return to work planning for all parents.
• The heart of our events is rooted in cultural observances. Our team loves the themed happy hours that occur on a regular basis.

At Alector, we are on a mission to slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases and to one day prevent their occurrence.

Since most neurodegenerative diseases are diseases of aging, we hypothesized that the brain’s immune cells lose their competence with time and are no longer able to support normal brain function or to repair avoidable brain diseases. Aging immune cells may further exacerbate the disease by secreting toxic immune mediators and by indiscriminate scavenging. With this understanding, we have devoted our efforts to the development of novel therapeutics that harness the brain’s immune system to treat neurodegeneration.

We know great ideas can come from anyone. That’s why we’ve built a diverse culture of curious minds that rewards courage, tenacity, and resilience at every level. We enjoy pushing ourselves to our intellectual limits and tackling big challenges because it motivates us to grow as we forge new paths to deliver urgently needed therapeutics.

We’re looking for driven people who want to roll up their sleeves and tackle difficult problems together. We’re not just looking for skills and abilities. We hire people who share our values and who aren’t afraid of a challenge—they’re motivated by it. If our values resonate with you and you’re looking for a new opportunity to make a difference, we want to meet you.

Our values are our North Star. They guide us as individuals & teams in our relentless pursuit of solving human health problems that were previously unsolvable. Living these values is what makes us Alector and putting them into practice allows us to move forward in the same direction – towards improving the lives of patients around the globe. Each month, we celebrate three Alectorians as our Value Champions, highlighting the ways they lived our values through their daily work.

“It is amazing to work for a company that is focused on bringing therapies to high need and devastating diseases - Alzheimer's Disease and cancer. What is even more amazing is the astonishing amount of progress that has been made in the relatively short history of the company. It is rewarding to be a part of that.”

Heather Jewell
Senior Global Regulatory Affairs Manager at Alector

"Alector is a great place to work where novel and interesting scientific questions are explored in a collaborative environment with the common goal of curing neurodegenerative diseases."

Michael Kurnellas
Senior Scientist at Alector

We’re committed to our team. We believe people work best with freedom and flexibility and in an environment that allows us all to be ourselves.

We understand that your life extends beyond Alector, and we strive to provide you with what you need to care for yourself and your family. We support our employees with a competitive package of benefits to promote your well-being.

Health and Wellness:

• We offer a variety of comprehensive plans covering medical, dental, vision and emotional needs. We partner with Modern Health for mental wellness services, Maven for financial and emotional support around reproductive health and parenting needs, and Bundle for personalized, virtual tutorial, and social experiences for employees and their families. We know the importance of having an active lifestyle, so we offer a free onsite gym, basketball court, and outdoor running/cycling path along the Bay.

Financial:

• We understand that financial stability gives our team members peace of mind. That’s why we offer a 401(k) match, flexible spending accounts, an employee stock purchase plan, company-paid life insurance, financial planning services, and company-paid short- and long-term disability insurance. Our team has access to free commuter shuttles to and from public mass transit locations.

Ownership:

• Alectorians have an ownership mindset, and all are eligible for ongoing equity awards and our employee stock purchase plan. We have big plans.

Learning & Development:

• Growth is important. That’s why it’s one of Alector’s core values to “embrace feedback—and a growth mindset.” It’s why we have a stellar weekly seminar program of visiting academics sharing their latest scientific breakthroughs. It’s why we provide a dedicated learning budget to support everyone’s growth and development. It’s why each team member has a quarterly check-in with their manager, on their progress towards their goals, on their aspirations, and on how they’re doing.

Time Off:

• We work hard but we also all need time out of the office for ourselves. To that end, our time off program is designed to support your needs—from vacation time to leaves of absence. We provide 10 paid company holidays, 20 paid time off days per year and winter holiday shutdown in December.

Workspace:

• We promote your health and wellness at work. Our headquarters is designed from the ground up with the team in mind with many collaborative break-out spaces, a quiet library for “deep work”, a mothering room, a meditation room, healthy snacks and more. Our biologics manufacturing team likewise has an amazing site in Newark, the Anderson-Simonsen Labs.

Hybrid Work Model:

• 2020 taught us that great work can be accomplished in a variety of work environments. We are empowering our people to deliver great results by giving team members choice and flexibility about your work conditions where possible, so you can each be your most productive self. We are embracing the principle of flexibility, by moving to a hybrid work model. We are also living our value of never giving up and persevering to find a new path: we will be testing and learning how we’ll best work as we go.

Community Involvement:

• We give back by organizing volunteer and charitable giving opportunities to bring people together and foster community. We participate annually in AFTD’s fundraising efforts by bicycling and running as part of the Charity Miles effort. Our Pedalon cycling club participates annually in Bike MS, a major fundraising event benefiting the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. We participate in a Family Giving Tree during the holiday season and donated to Feeding America during the pandemic. 

Team Building:

• There are lots of team activities to get involved in such as happy hours, game nights, movie series, bake-a-thons, science challenges, sports-viewing parties, and company holiday and milestone parties. Our team is surprisingly eager to play Bingo. An enterprising Alectorian recently created an eldercare and family illness support group for employees. If you have a new community or fun activity in mind, there are probably other Alectorians who share it. And if it doesn’t exist, you can start it! Because that’s living our value “Own it – with the freedom to figure it out.”