Thursday, April 3, 2014

Daily Pump Trap: 4/3/14 edition

Good morning! Don't call it a comeback, but here are a few relevant or interesting positions among the many that are being posted on C&EN Jobs.

Wilmington, MA: Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry is hiring junior and senior-level chemists; anyone out there know what it's like to work here?

Baton Rouge, LA: I love this description in this Albemarle posting for a senior R&D chemist:
The successful candidate will support our R&D activities directed toward the identification, development and commercialization of New Fine Chemical products. This will involve literature searches, construction of complex lab apparatus designed to safely manipulate hazardous chemicals under potentially extreme conditions, designing and conducting experiments directed toward new product development, synthesizing samples for customer testing/qualification, writing technical packages and reports and collecting data to be used in the development of detailed cost estimates.
Nothing like "potentially extreme conditions" to get the blood flowing. (No education level specified.)

Huh: This is an interesting way to post a high school teaching position in New York City:
$125,000 Salary for Science Teachers 
Earn a $125,000 salary and join a team of master teachers at The Equity Project (TEP) Charter School, recently featured on the front page of the New York Times.
I've not talked a lot about high school teaching, but suffice it to say that between the pay and the actual job (crowd control/teaching of teenagers), it doesn't appeal to me. $125k? Might be worth another think. [Of course, that is exactly why I shouldn't be teaching high school, potentially at any price.]

Sheffield, UK: A Ph.D. clinical pharmacology position has been posted for Simcyp (a Certara company), which is not an organization that I'm familiar with. The posted salary is 40-55k GBP (which currently is equivalent to 66-91k USD.) Is that high or low? Seems a little low. Also titled "research assistant/scientist", which seems a little low.

What the heck does that mean?: An odd statement in a medical technology lab posting:
Special features of this position: If you love improving processes, enhancing workflow, and "Leaning out a lab", this could be a great next step for you.
I suppose this has to do with Lean (the process improvement tool) and not "Lean In", the Sheryl Sandberg book.

Zeroes!: AbbVie posting another B.S./M.S. DMPK position, 3+ years for the B.S. chemist, zero experience needed for the M.S. candidate.  

8 comments:

  1. The pay in that ad from Sheffield is actually more than an entry-level PhD research chemist (and a lot more than a postdoc) earns in the UK.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've noticed a fair amount of hiring in the UK, and I'll be honest, the wages are kind of low. They are fine and offer comfortable living with public services like health care and public schools, adequate vacation time, and legal guarantees of work life balance. It's ... intimidating if you have things like American student loans.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Leaning out a lab" - Translation fun for everyone.........
    -Hiring female workers who dream of quiting to have children?
    -Laying off the workers to get the company lean?
    -Hiring sexist male workers who drive females away?
    -Working in poorly ventilated areas which require you to lean out a window?
    -Working in CA were the frequent earthquakes require you to lean back and forth to continue working at your hood uninterrupted?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Some more UK wage perspective:
    Lecturer in medicinal chemistry at Nottingham (bottom rung academic position): £33,562 to £45,053 ($55.6k-$74k) http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AIJ777/lecturer-in-medicinal-chemistry/
    School teachers with a degree start at £21,804 ($36k), and 'the starting salary in teaching is high compared to other graduate starting salaries': http://www.education.gov.uk/get-into-teaching/salary.aspx?sc_lang=en-GB
    Graduates at the RSC start on £24,317 ($40.3k), whether you've got a PhD or not. http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/rscwork/Graduates/index.asp

    I'd suggest there's no way that job in Sheffield is going to a newly minted PhD.

    And a salary of £40k puts a single person without dependents into the top 6% of earners in the UK, according to this site: http://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/

    ReplyDelete
  5. On "Leaning Out" in a Chemistry Context: http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/i-didn-t-want-to-lean-out

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've heard some pretty bad things about Warner Babcock from former colleagues who worked there for a while. Don't know if it's still the case, but it used to be a miserable place with really bad management.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glassdoor salaries seem mid/high-range or so, depending on how you look at it: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Warner-Babcock-Institute-for-Green-Chemisty-Salaries-E141374.htm

      Delete
  7. The cost of living in Sheffield is also miniscule. You could live like a king there on that.

    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