Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Daily Pump Trap: 8/28/12 edition

Good morning! Between August 23 and August 27, there were 93 new positions. Of these, 35 (38%) were academically connected and 49 (53%) were from Kelly Scientific Resources.

Bozeman, MT: SensoPath Technologies is looking for 2 Ph.D. organic chemists, salary 42-48k:
Two research and development positions available with an early-stage company in Bozeman, Montana, a town of 35,000 in an area of amazing beauty. Positions would focus on (a) biosensor linker design and synthesis and (b) synthesis of porphyrin therapeutics for PDT cancer treatment. Anticipated start date for (b) October 2012 for a 2 year period with 6 month reviews. Salary for (b) is pre-set by funding.
Sounds interesting; Bozeman is a lovely town.

Iselin, NJ: BASF is hiring an experienced B.S./M.S./Ph.D. analytical chemist; expertise with optical spectroscopy techniques desired.

San Carlos, CA: Novartis is looking for an experienced M.S./Ph.D. analytical chemist to perform method development and stability-related work towards inhalation-based drug delivery.

Who does Lilly want?: Eli Lilly and Company has 6 positions for the search term "chemist", including a "director of bioproduct analytical development" position. 

11 comments:

  1. Sounds like you've never made a porphyrin.

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    Replies
    1. Maybe implying that it's not interesting?

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    2. It's not that it is not interesting, it is, but it is also a very labor-intensive and, more often then not, incredibly dirty work.

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    3. Exactly. 25% yield on a good day, even after you account for the fact that you're condensing 4 equiv. of the stuff. If you get really lucky, you can recrystallize it, otherwise, it's the rainbow column from hell.

      Delete
  2. It's in But....oh wait, a Montana company that isn't Resodyn? That's interesting.

    But 48k? What kind of people do they want to hire? "Salary is pre-set by funding". Does that mean "funding for postdoc, but trying to spin off company"?

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    Replies
    1. This is the reality we live in. People routinely accept salaries in this range in academia, I would even say that it is on the higher end for a non-tenure-track lecturer, or a chemist in a start-up. In fact, I personally know people in either position who initially took significantly less than 40.

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  3. @CJ: Porphyrins and phthalocyanines are usually terrible to make, as implied by somedude9:23. Macrocyclization, especially without a template, can deliver paltry yields. You also get a bunch of polymeric crap that has marginal solubility in low-boiling organic solvents. Making them water-soluble poses another challenge; no wonder it took Woodward and his army over a decade to synthesize vitamin B12.

    @Polychem: One of the positions is listed as an industrial postdoc, so the salary isn't terrible for the area. Jobs in big cities are hard to come by nowadays. FYI, I know of several synthetic sweatshops in New Jersey that pay the same amount for PhD-level scientists...now THAT'S attrocious!

    Bozeman is pretty during every season except winter; my friend from Montana would liken it to exile on Hoth. Anyway, for soon-to-be minted porphyrin chemists, would it be "career suicide" to work at such an organization?

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    Replies
    1. "career suicide" depends on the prospects. If my options were a) to go to a low-paid job in Bozeman or b) to go to a CRO in South Carolina where you work on 6-month contract with minimum health coverage and they pay you crap (but you also work in high stress breakneck tempo and can never publish your work) or c) collect unemployment for another half a year while sending out five application every day, calling in favors and getting completely depressed, I would probably give Bozeman job a go

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    2. Would it be career suicide? Yeah, it will be. You'll spend several years there, not building your network, not earning any meaningful amount of money, not acquiring any useful skills, and when the company folds you'll end up in the same place you are now, but on the wrong side of 30.

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  4. One of the positions is listed as an industrial postdoc, so the salary isn't terrible for the area. Jobs in big cities are hard to come by nowadays. FYI, I know of several synthetic sweatshops in New Jersey that pay the same amount for PhD-level scientists...now THAT'S attrocious!

    ReplyDelete

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20