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Consider working on genomics

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Re: Consider working on genomics

#201

Post by x0x0 »

AlbertCory wrote: post #27

20 years ago I got interested in "bioinformatics." I loved learning something about molecular biology, after all those years of hearing about DNA and not understanding it. And "Molecular Biology of the Cell" is, hands down, the greatest textbook ever written. That said: a lot of the comments are spot on. You're working in a field where the hard scientists and business people rule and you're a helper. Maybe they're gr…

I worked in the field. Leaving to work on ads immediately tripled my salary, and gave me more room to grow.

Everyone who says you're the hired help and treated about as well as a secretary that the organization dislikes is dead on. At best, you're viewed as an overpaid cost center.

Which is sad, because I'd love to work in these areas... but I'm not giving up 66% to 75% of my income to as charity to private corporations.

Re: Consider working on genomics

#202

Post by sargstuff »

From past work experience & funding source priorities, computational genomics usually considered a supporting role as information analyst when needs to be a research software engineer. (unless building software for ct, mri, x-ray scanning process).

aka need to be able to develop the dna / dna number system equivalent of things (aka something other than binary / punch card block based number system) such as:

   treesitter 

   nyquest : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist_(programming_language)

   slippery chicken : https://ccrma.stanford.edu/workshops/algorithmic-composition-with-slippery-chicken
but wind up doing the equivalent of automated statistical analysis, because focus is NOT to develop software package/system.

short broader subject take, what programming groups dont get about applicative programming vs. algol/block programming

Re: Consider working on genomics

#203

Post by jonathanyc »

rafiki6 wrote: post #124
AlbertCory wrote: post #27

20 years ago I got interested in "bioinformatics." I loved learning something about molecular biology, after all those years of hearing about DNA and not understanding it. And "Molecular Biology of the Cell" is, hands down, the greatest textbook ever written. That said: a lot of the comments are spot on. You're working in a field where the hard scientists and business people rule and you're a helper. Maybe they're gr…

I wish more fields would just start adopting the product/engineer partnership that Software companies have perfected. Engineers are very good at what they do. Product people are very good at what they do. They need each other to build things. Sure, engineers might know enough about product to get by and product people might know enough about coding to get by, but the reason it works is because each one is an expert i…

I have heard from a friend who's a doctor that in hospitals there's a very adversarial relationship between doctors and MBAs. The MBAs see the doctors as a cost center, and the doctors resent people without MDs being above them.

Your comment reminds me to be thankful that at many software companies engineering, product, and design do respect each other as equal partners. I totally agree that to do otherwise is business suicide.

Re: Consider working on genomics

#204

Post by enraged_camel »

bmitc wrote: post #114

Usually, scientific oriented companies or organizations have little regard for software as a domain, craft, etc. It’s just a thing that gets in the way, despite being vital. It’s almost just a utility to them rather than a differentiator and active component of the advanced work going on. For example, the Broad Institute is super interesting, but having applied there several times, they are esoteric, to say the least…

Yeah, I’d love to work in scientific computing and write Elixir, but it seems non-existent.

Re: Consider working on genomics

#205

Post by [deleted] »

whimsicalism wrote: post #110

Call me when non-tech fields learn to treat engineers as equal partners rather than disposable labor. Academia? Yeah they're going to be one of the last to realize, PIs don't want to cede any power in their little fiefdom. Very familiar with the dynamics there.

[deleted]

Re: Consider working on genomics

#206

Post by ninala »

lebovic wrote: post #175

I'm a software engineer who works on genomics. I see a lot of negativity in this thread, which mirrors my experience: in most places, you'll be paid like a researcher with the respect of a lab assistant – unless you have a PhD and a postdoc. That said, it's possible find work that's respected and pays well. Most of that kind of work is happening in the context of startups or freelancing. My favorite example of this i…

If you want to find good jobs like this, you should check out the monthly HN "Who is hiring" threads. There aren't that many biotechs, but there are a few (like ours). I agree about the need for better tooling. There's also a need for a stronger conceptual understanding of cell biology generally, and an ability to build an ecosystem of APIs that work well together. My email is in my profile if you'd like to talk more about this space.

Re: Consider working on genomics

#207

Post by sargstuff »

whimsicalism wrote: post #110

Call me when non-tech fields learn to treat engineers as equal partners rather than disposable labor. Academia? Yeah they're going to be one of the last to realize, PIs don't want to cede any power in their little fiefdom. Very familiar with the dynamics there.

Scope of PI interest / funding defined by research grant.

So, unless research is ground breaking / exploritory across disciplines, supporting disciplines tend to be extremely limited by PI research interest.

aka (wording sanitized a bit) tends to come across as being tight wad / ham fisted

Re: Consider working on genomics

#209

Post by firstplacelast »

tgv wrote: post #176
debacle wrote: post #11

Science programming jobs suck. You get all the bad parts of academia, including less money, plus you're seen as a janitor rather than an engineer, and you get to deal with scientists all day. Tooling roles in SWE in every other field are highly regarded. Why not here?

Because it's not what sells. It's literally a tool, and if you don't deliver the level of perfection they're used to get from sequencing, NMR or assay testing machines, you're the PITA. You really have to bring something very interesting to the table to earn some status, and software engineering just doesn't. It's too far from the core business. Think of the attitude SWEs have towards sales people...

The thing is many will pay big bucks to contractors/consultants/IT services/LIMS systems, but if you’re an employee, nope.

They have a hard time having someone with a BS or MS making 50-75k more than a freshly-minted PhD.

I just left a job in pharma because I cannot do it anymore (salary being a big one, but my experiences reflect many in this thread).

They spent 500k on a consulting company to build a few NGS processing pipelines. This was built using a framework I was unfamiliar with. I re-factored one of them and was able to increase runtime by 60% in a couple weeks. I was paid in the low 100’s.

They would rather contract out the high-paid work and pay orders of magnitude more for it.

Re: Consider working on genomics

#210

Post by ninala »

boppo1 wrote: post #72
AlbertCory wrote: post #27

20 years ago I got interested in "bioinformatics." I loved learning something about molecular biology, after all those years of hearing about DNA and not understanding it. And "Molecular Biology of the Cell" is, hands down, the greatest textbook ever written. That said: a lot of the comments are spot on. You're working in a field where the hard scientists and business people rule and you're a helper. Maybe they're gr…

>Molecular Biology of the Cell Tangential, but what are the chemistry prereqs to grasp this book?

The chemistry requirements are minimal. You should understand the difference between ionic and covalent bonds, how van der Waals forces work, hydrophobicity, solubility, and the effects of catalysts on reaction transition states. It will also be important to understand what reaction kinetics are and what pH means. An understanding of buffers might be useful.

I would argue that, to understand the book, you specifically don't need to know electrochemistry, organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, organometallics, spectroscopy, or even physical chemistry.

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