Avantages
Working at Dexcom gave me valuable perspective on just how bad a company can be and for that I appreciate my current job even more. I think it is inevitable that every job will involve some BS here and there but Dexcom really sets the bar astonishingly high (or low...?). Whenever I run into something annoying at my current job it really grounds me to take a second to remember: "Hey, at least it's not Dexcom-bad." There is a handful of really wonderful humans who work at Dexcom who I was happy to meet and spend time with while at work.
Inconvénients
Technical leadership lacks the technical background and experience necessary to adequately direct research, new technology development or to solve problems that inevitably pop up when changes are made to the existing product. This is especially problematic because technical leadership insists on a very top-down, autocratic management style despite hiring (for the most part) very talented and capable PhD level engineers and scientist. The result is a pseudo-intellectual, bully culture where experimental evidence is only relevant if it makes (middle-)management look good. While I was at Dexcom it wasn't uncommon to see people with PhD's blatantly manipulate or misrepresent data to please (or avoid the wrath of?) their vindictive supervisor. I also saw people present thorough, honest data that refuted the leadership's latest hair-brained hypothesis and where then transferred to a different project or quietly uninvited from the weekly project meeting. None of this should really comes as a surprise though, when you consider that none of the founding scientists or engineers are still at the company and that the current CTO (who holds only a bachelors degree in electrical engineering) just happens to be married to the former CEO's daughter. And it's all unqualified legacy employees from there on down. It's almost impressive how bad working at Dexcom is. Unless you're some kind of glutton for punishment I'd seriously consider looking somewhere else. Or don't believe me and you can experience it for yourself.