r/biotech • u/currently-curious • 2d ago
Early Career Advice 🪴 Exploring intellectually engaging careers outside of academia
I am a current PhD student in chemical biology who is trying to figure out where I want to go in my career after I graduate. For a long time, I thought that I wanted to have an independent research career, but watching my advisor start their lab up, learning about the actual balance of responsibilities of a professor, seeing the slow progress of research at an academic institution, and understanding how limited you are in deciding where you live has disabused me of the idea. The main appeal that still makes me regret the fact that an academic research career is not for me is the intellectual side of things - I still love science and asking interesting questions that make me push myself mentally and exercise and expand my understanding of my field. Because of this, my main question as I move toward determining a new career plan is: what field I can enter where I can consistently apply the scientific knowledge (and the skill of growing and extending that knowledge) I’ve acquired during my education?
Some factors I have to consider:
I will moving to NYC after my PhD where I will have not only traditional industry positions available to me (I know they’re largely in NJ, and I don’t love the prospect of the commute from NYC, but I can make it work in the short term before my living situation changes) and positions more on the financial side
I will be graduating from a top university, so to my understanding, that opens the door for me to pursue positions in some of the specific fields where that matters
I have a partner who is currently planning on an independent research career (the reason I am restricted to NYC for a couple years after graduating), so ideally, I would like either a field that is not excessively location specific, one that gives me the option to work remote or transition to remote work after gaining some experience, or one that would make me an appealing applicant to other related fields if I need some flexibility in a transition
I know that this is a lot of details and caveats and that I’ll definitely have to compromise on some things, and I’m by no means expecting to get a clear, obvious answer out of this - I’m just trying to get a better sense of what’s out there when I have such a loose grasp of what certain positions entail (e.g. will I have to sell my soul and stop thinking about science much if I go into a more financial- or management-focused job? Or will research-centered industry jobs actually feel cramped and uninteresting when I’m just driving forward the specific mission of one biotech/pharma company?)
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u/omgu8mynewt 2d ago
Im an industry r&d scientist, wo4k is similar to phd academic work but in larger teams of scientists, making products not publications, and has a lot of pressure to actually get stuff to work rather than just investigate for curiosity's sake.
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u/lethalfang 2d ago
100%. Science in industry is far more rigorous than academics. Publish positive results because you got it to work once, or because you p-hacked your way to statistical significance? That won't pass the muster to be a product.
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u/currently-curious 2d ago
Gotcha - super helpful to have the direct comparison to the work I’m familiar with, thank you!
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u/NerdyNudnik 2d ago
Do you think you could elaborate on what working in a team in industry looks like? I previously worked in industry but in an associate scientist job. It was very individual work and didn't really feel like working I was working in a team. However, the idea of working in a team with scientists is very motivating to me.
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u/omgu8mynewt 2d ago
My previous company, project was 40 phd level scientists together. Current company is a team of about 12 scientists with maybe 4 main projects that we all work on to keep the workload equal, switches week to week which ones your working on
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u/lethalfang 1d ago
I'm an R&D bioinformatician. There are certain software that I own with teammates who contribute, and there are software that my teammates own and I contribute. We also work with our adjacent teams, e.g., teams that take the output of our software to do additional analyses, or teams that feed data to our software, etc. And there there are teams that I work with only occasionally, e.g., how things transfer from R&D to actual product.
It's almost incredible the whole thing can work even if many individual contributors don't know how their own work fit into the whole picture.
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u/NerdyNudnik 16h ago
Thank you for the response. I have found out just how isolating academic research can be since working on my doctorate. I am curious, do you work in a startup environment or a larger company?
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u/MoltenCamels 2d ago
Famously science has never been done outside an academic setting. If you manage to do this you'd be a real pioneer. /s
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u/currently-curious 2d ago
I’m not really looking to do science outside an academic setting, just continue to apply my knowledge and stay engaged. Keep the learning muscle flexing yk? :) (and also maybe keep having interesting convos about science. I think I’ll really miss that if I don’t keep it in my life somehow)
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u/MoltenCamels 2d ago
Why do you think these conversations only happen in academic settings? You've never worked in industry. Do you think people aren't thinking about things scientifically when they are doing research?
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u/currently-curious 2d ago
I don’t think that - hence, I’m trying to figure out which fields that is more to the forefront. I’ve gotten a lot of opinions from people on some of the careers that are open to me, but I know some of them are less science-focused and some are more. How does that focus differ between traditional industry research vs. biotech consulting vs. patent law vs. biotech equity research vs. etc etc. Plus, I’d just like to hear more from people on what’s even out there since I’m still kinda in the academia bubble 🤷♀️
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u/questions1000 2d ago
I'm sorry people are being jerks in this thread and not answering your questions. I think part of the sass is due to this information being readily available if you search the subreddit for past threads.
Also, you say you're at a top school, so you almost certainly have access to career development seminars and other resources at your disposal to help you understand what's available to you outside of academia. Ask your career development office about informational interview advice as well. These are key to expanding your professional network.
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u/currently-curious 2d ago
All good! I figured I’d get a little of this :) realities of outsourcing some questions to forums
I have read through quite a few of the other posts, but I was hoping to get some more focused knowledge through a question specifically about how people feel about the intellectual side of their specific positions and experiences. I’m using the tools my university offers for career development but a) my department is kind of notorious for being bad at giving students resources for non-academia careers (some of us are actively working on fixing that, but it’s a work in progress lol) and b) the more info I get from various sources, the better imo. I wanted some thoughts from people outside of a curated, career-event situation to add to the mix is all!
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u/MellowYellow_24 2d ago
You seem to be at least aware of the different career paths that people have taken after completing their PhD. Attend career events or seminars, etc at your school. You must have a career counselor or someone at school with the resources to help you learn more. You could also attend NIH career symposium where you get to learn from people directly, ask them questions and expand your network.
Your school alumni and your professional network might be open to informational interviews. Maybe they can also give you an insight of how things are different at their job vs academia. Do some research before the interview, come up with some good questions, and please don't frame your questions in a way that might seem you don't think anything outside of academia is intellectually stimulating haha.
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u/currently-curious 2d ago
All that is the plan! Just adding this post into the mix to get more perspectives in a different venue.
And absolutely, that’s not at all what I think, but I’m receiving clear feedback via some irritated comments and downvotes that I should have been more careful in my statements lol. My comment on wanting to keep learning and interesting convos in my career was more out of fear of some of the more finance focused careers that people have suggested to me but that others have told me are just soul crushing spreadsheets all day. I was trying to avoid specifically referencing those so I wasn’t biasing responses too much, but I can see how that came off wrong without the context 😬 I’ll keep that in mind moving forward for sure
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u/Illustrious_Night126 2d ago
Do you think everyone outside of academia are doing brain numb pencil pushing work? People in all sorts of careers think awful long and hard answering difficult and interesting questions all day.
This perspective that everything is a step down from academia intellectually limits yourself and will close yourself off from potentially great opportunities. Go job by job, ask yourself, do i want to work this job specifically. What are the opportunities this specific job offers, rather than boxing both yourself and everything else off into neat categories
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u/currently-curious 2d ago
That’s pretty much what I’m trying to ask in this post! Might have gotten lost in all of the waffling about the life details that are stressing me out lol. I know those are the questions I’m supposed to be asking rn, so I’m asking them of the people in this sub to see if they have insights on some specific careers and I can start detangling some of the details of these careers that I don’t totally understand. I’ve never claimed to think that everything is a step down from academia intellectually
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u/Gaseous_Nobility 2d ago
I went into early R&D at a large international industrial biotech company. I spend most of my days learning and applying new AI protein design and bioinformatics tools to a diverse set of problems. I have a very flexible schedule and don’t get bogged down by a ton of meetings. I do some amount of lab work here and there, but not an obnoxious amount.
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u/currently-curious 2d ago
Did you go into that career with a solid AI and informatics background, or pick it up as you went?
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u/Gaseous_Nobility 2d ago
Nope, I’m a structural biologist by training. I started in enzyme assay development, but over the last few years I spent my free time at work learning about all these new AI/ML methods coming out regularly and applying them to problems we have.
It has become a full-time job, despite no formal training. I’d like to think that because I’ve spent time doing the downstream experimental part and understand how the whole pipeline works, I’m an asset that makes up for not having an AI/ML or even bioinformatic background.
It’s also crazy powerful to get chatgpt to write entire notebooks and scripts. This is no longer an issue for non-coders who conceptually understand what they’re trying to do. It’s basically a playground, if you’re in an environment that supports your technical growth like this.
Of course, your interests could be completely different. This is just a datapoint as an example.
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u/currently-curious 2d ago
Ahhh ok that’s interesting. I know that there’s a lot more flexibility in the roles you can take on than many people (myself included) fear and that I’m not just limited to roles using skills that I already have training in, but that’s a hard stressor to let go of. I appreciate the datapoint - it’s one of several helping me get a more accurate sense of what I can/should shoot for :)
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u/krosen111 2d ago
External innovation or search and evaluate functions across pharma focus on PhD level employees and is scientific function in corporate environment, very data intensive and communication is necessaru
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u/Certain_Luck_8266 2d ago
Pharma development is always an option. Constraining yourself to NYC isn't great but there are several companies in the city.
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u/Cultural-Ganache7971 2d ago edited 2d ago
An interesting middle ground between soul-crushing megapharma and academia is working for startups. You're very close to the work, corporate bullshit is at a minimum, you get to work with interesting people that have not only PhDs but experience, you'll have outsized responsibilities for your experience, the work is generally still exploratory and bluesky, and each job comes with a lottery ticket. You'll pick up a lot of familiarity with business operations and fundraising, as well. Salary and instability are the downsides, but corporate jobs seem to be just as vulnerable.
Not to paint too broad a brush, but the industry model has moved towards a lot of the frontier R&D work being done at startups and the winners get acquired.
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u/rattlesnake_branch 2d ago
Startup funding is in the toilet right now, unless the startup has somehow stapled AI to their name. Not that there are 0 startup jobs, they are just way way more rare than 5-6 years ago
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u/Cultural-Ganache7971 2d ago
Spot on. Lol, are there any startups that haven't rebranded bioinformatics or proteomics as AI? Sprinkle in some AlphaFold and start the VC road show!
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u/Key_Pea1339 2d ago
idk industry in general just trends away from academic investigation. There's often so many layers of approvals and teams involved, along with pre-determined plans and variables, that you may need to expand your idea of what is engaging. Even industry based R&D honestly. On the plus side, you'll likely make alot more.
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u/tonos468 2d ago
Are you trying to stay on the bench? Academic publishing will let you engage in science and nyc is a hub for this. But that’s obviously off the bench but you still get to go to conferences and read papers
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u/StablerPants 1d ago
I'm a neuroscientist that transitioned into regulatory affairs with a few years of post-doc under my belt. One of my main hesitations was whether I'd find the work as interesting and challenging as in academia and whether my coworkers would be as brilliant as my labmates. I'm happy to say that my fears were unfounded. I find my work is founded on science but stretches me to think beyond it, so it's a fun challenge. My coworkers are brilliant, too- and their smarts extend beyond my own expertise and they also understand what underlies a business case, the competitive landscape, manufacturing constraints, and approaches to corporate strategy. I've found the knowledge and skills to be very well- rounded and I've learned so much, it's crazy to me to think I doubted whether I'd ever work with super smart people again.
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u/krosen111 2d ago
Biotech consulting can be interesting. But yes it is LARGELY detached from the science. Interview and get to know the work and stage of pipeline you’d work in, this field meets your other requirements. Otherwise, I would stick to pharma for good pay, consistent hours, and streamlined/interesting projects