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From what I hear, the lower mobility is endemic to biotech culture. The only folks who are able to run significant research programs are junior faculty poached

by sidr 8y ago

From what I hear, the lower mobility is endemic to biotech culture. The only folks who are able to run significant research programs are junior faculty poached from the nearby medical schools. If you are a fresh PhD or postdocs you have a low ceiling on growth potential and starting salary. This is probably due to a glut of cheap highly educated (PhD+) labor in the life sciences - way more so than CS. Also, at these biotechs, the software/informatics/stats folks are just playing support roles and are treating accordingly in terms of autonomy and compensation. This is mostly heresay from folks I know from my PhD days in a computational life science field in Boston. The other computational folks I know have either tried to stick it through in academia or have left for greener pastures in software. The wet lab people who joined biotechs are not thrilled.

jghn 8y ago
The second class citizen for software/stats/informatics is indeed generally true but not universal. It seems like the trend is in the right direction at least. My workplace is definitely changing in that regard.
aaavl2821 8y ago
I've heard the same thing. Biopharma does a pretty bad job developing young talent. Too many smart young scientists and not enough jobs, and the scientists are used to less than stellar compensation and treatment in academia From what I've heard this is a bit worse in Boston than the Bay Area. There seems to be more hierarchy and ageism in Boston and some of the VCs are very vocal in their preference for older employees. Bay Area is a bit better, some tech VCs are trying to get into biotech by supporting young scientists but there's still a long way to go
- ghaff 8y ago
  Funny you use ageism in that context. It usually refers to preferring younger workers. I don’t know about biotech specifically but anecdotally the Boston area is probably more generally often to older workers because of things like embedded, other kernel level stuff, and other tasks that require traditional engineering disciplines and people with experience from a Boston-area computer companies.
  - aaavl2821 8y ago
    "Reverse ageism" is actually a fairly controversial topic in biotech. After a Twitter debate, a top VC (and one of the only biotech VCs who blogs) wrote this post about why he likes older entrepreneurs [0] IMO he has valid points, but there are all kinds of issues with his analysis, but bottom line is there isn't enough data to prove either sides point, so there's a lot of opinions presented as facts [0] https://lifescivc.com/2018/02/grey-hair-c-suite-experience-age-ipos-biotech/ https://lifescivc.com/2018/02/grey-hair-c-suite-experience-a...

by sidr 8y ago

jghn 8y ago

The second class citizen for software/stats/informatics is indeed generally true but not universal. It seems like the trend is in the right direction at least. My workplace is definitely changing in that regard.

aaavl2821 8y ago

I've heard the same thing. Biopharma does a pretty bad job developing young talent. Too many smart young scientists and not enough jobs, and the scientists are used to less than stellar compensation and treatment in academia From what I've heard this is a bit worse in Boston than the Bay Area. There seems to be more hierarchy and ageism in Boston and some of the VCs are very vocal in their preference for older employees. Bay Area is a bit better, some tech VCs are trying to get into biotech by supporting young scientists but there's still a long way to go

ghaff 8y ago
Funny you use ageism in that context. It usually refers to preferring younger workers. I don’t know about biotech specifically but anecdotally the Boston area is probably more generally often to older workers because of things like embedded, other kernel level stuff, and other tasks that require traditional engineering disciplines and people with experience from a Boston-area computer companies.
- aaavl2821 8y ago
  "Reverse ageism" is actually a fairly controversial topic in biotech. After a Twitter debate, a top VC (and one of the only biotech VCs who blogs) wrote this post about why he likes older entrepreneurs [0] IMO he has valid points, but there are all kinds of issues with his analysis, but bottom line is there isn't enough data to prove either sides point, so there's a lot of opinions presented as facts [0] https://lifescivc.com/2018/02/grey-hair-c-suite-experience-age-ipos-biotech/ https://lifescivc.com/2018/02/grey-hair-c-suite-experience-a...