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I work for a major pharmaceutical. Effectively, there is no tech track in our IT organization. Technical advancement in IT peters out below principal scientis

I work for a major pharmaceutical. Effectively, there is no tech track in our IT organization. Technical advancement in IT peters out below principal scientist level. However, in our R&D division, chemists, biologists, chemical engineers, and statisticians do rise to PS level and beyond. It's a mindset: IT management doesn't value technical chops anywhere near as much as they do project management skills. The PS role here also serves the agenda of R&D much more directly than it does in IT. In R&D, PSes act as advisors, sitting in on maybe a dozen or more projects and offering advice to minimize risk, maximize yield, and validate research techniques and initiatives. But software is perceived as serving a business need, not a technical one, even when it takes place on behalf of R&D. Input from business-side stakeholders continues throughout a project's life, but computing experts are consulted only briefly -- before the design and maintenance stages in a software lifecycle. Also, many IT advisors arise from outside the company, from vendors or external consultants. Pharma IT's attitude has long been, "We'll follow the lead of mainstream industry trends rather than maintain in-house IT expertise." With perhaps 95% of our software arising from 3rd party apps (or mods thereof) or external services, we have chosen to let industry trends and fashions drive our IT priorities and solutions. In the end, most pharmas believe IT is a necessary evil to be cost minimized, not an essential game changer that can help us beat the competition.

bluGill 6y ago
IF you prove them wrong, then you have just earned yourself the top technical position. However that is a big if. So long as lab work is where the company is, IT should be a lower role. In fact for some companies even if you developed the perfect software the correct answer is this isn't what we do so we will sell the division (read you - if you don't like the new company you can quit as they won't allow you a job with the old). If you don't like it find a different company. OTOH, it isn't clear that any company actually needs another great person with the ones they already have. Be prepared to start in the middle and work up.
mattgreenrocks 6y ago
Parent post is right on the money. Many companies talk a big talk about tech but ultimately believe it is not a core enabler of innovation, but rather a necessary but annoying cost that they haven't figured out how to minimize effectively. I've definitely seen that in the past. They're more businesses that use technology, rather than technology companies. Often, fashion dictates their technical aesthetic more than actual taste. Which is fine, as long as they're honest about it. (And I just _feel_ someone itching to justify this point to me in a reply. Don't bother.) Current trajectory of my career is that of a technical specialist, namely in the area of static/dynamic analysis and compilers. Basically, the science part of "computer science." Of course, not many companies do this sort of thing. That's fine. There are companies that value experts, and expertise, but they may not be the types of companies that get talked about on HN. The tech world is much bigger than HN. I could write a book on this; I have gone all the way down the rabbit hole of burnout and back in trying to carve out my career niche. It can be done.

bluGill 6y ago

IF you prove them wrong, then you have just earned yourself the top technical position. However that is a big if. So long as lab work is where the company is, IT should be a lower role. In fact for some companies even if you developed the perfect software the correct answer is this isn't what we do so we will sell the division (read you - if you don't like the new company you can quit as they won't allow you a job with the old). If you don't like it find a different company. OTOH, it isn't clear that any company actually needs another great person with the ones they already have. Be prepared to start in the middle and work up.

mattgreenrocks 6y ago

Parent post is right on the money. Many companies talk a big talk about tech but ultimately believe it is not a core enabler of innovation, but rather a necessary but annoying cost that they haven't figured out how to minimize effectively. I've definitely seen that in the past. They're more businesses that use technology, rather than technology companies. Often, fashion dictates their technical aesthetic more than actual taste. Which is fine, as long as they're honest about it. (And I just _feel_ someone itching to justify this point to me in a reply. Don't bother.) Current trajectory of my career is that of a technical specialist, namely in the area of static/dynamic analysis and compilers. Basically, the science part of "computer science." Of course, not many companies do this sort of thing. That's fine. There are companies that value experts, and expertise, but they may not be the types of companies that get talked about on HN. The tech world is much bigger than HN. I could write a book on this; I have gone all the way down the rabbit hole of burnout and back in trying to carve out my career niche. It can be done.