> respect of a lab assistant – unless you have a PhD and a postdoc.
This applies to even those with those with Biology backgrounds, as an undergrad that entered the Industry after an expensive and precarious 5 years of University and exiting during the aftermath of the financial crisis with tons of debt I knew I was never going to enjoy or like my time there within the first months.
I had aspirations to be CLS (you need to be sponsored by a corporation for the training/licensing process) but the truth is the Industry is rife with petty political rivalries where you can get sucked into for no other reason than being assigned to someone's lab that didn't cite them years back--you and your career can easily become collateral damage as result or some other bitter rivalry.
I found most in that Industry to be passive-aggressive cowards who would never confront an issue with anyone or anything and would rather create and foster this toxic atmosphere where it's typical that unless you did a PhD or a Post-doc you might as well be a mindless drone who carries out the edicts of your superiors who graduated in the 70s or 80s.
I will offer this advice: don't enter the Industry unless you get paid extraordinarily more to do so than any other offer you get, and if you love the life/health sciences (as I once did) please find some other outlet because the Industry will quickly steal any passion and leave you without much recourse.
Work in Genomics is promising, as is most Health Sciences in the 21st Century, but it is in DIRE need of a cultural shift (most boomer aged researchers need to die or retire already) and since the best ones are bio-hackers for a reason despite the lack of funding, there are other options albeit not lucrative ones.
> The culture somewhere shifted around 2018-2019
Your experience sounds like the brochure version of what we were sold as an undergrad in the Health Sciences, the ability to have on the job cross-discipline job experience, the reality was way more toxic, we didn't have agile or PM back then but we had Lab Directors and the thumb of corporate which in my view was way more hostile towards such an environment. Anything that deviated from your workload was seen as a unnecessary distraction and misuse of company resources.
I'm glad I made the pivot to tech when I did despite the turmoil to get there, but sadly now that I'm focused on AI/ML in order to come back to tech industry outside of my narrow displine, it's now imploding on itself with mass layoffs or hiring freezes and it seems that the recession will be used a reason to up-end the many reasons why tech was better than the health sciences, where apparently it's already becoming more normal for even a role as an intern for a YC backed company to require a Masters/PhD student!