Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Daily Pump Trap: 5/17/11 edition

Good morning! Between May 12 and May 16, there were 23 new positions posted on the ACS Careers website. Of these, 4 (17%) are academically connected.

Slowing down a lot: I suspect that we're in the summer 'fallow' period. Things will probably pick up again in mid-July.

Oh, you again: Neurocrine Biosciences is a biotech in San Diego; as I recall, they laid off a good portion of their medicinal chemistry staff some years ago. That being said, they're looking for an experienced Ph.D. chemist to be their director of chemical development. Eight years experience in the pharmaceutical field desired. Hopefully, this is good news for them.

And you, too: Intrexon is still looking for that position for a M.S./Ph.D. chemist to perform scale-ups of internal R&D compounds. Why the resubmit?

Breathe free: Assay Technologies (Boardman, OH) manufactures personal monitoring badges for chemicals. They're looking for a B.S./M.S./Ph.D. chemist to perform analysis; method development experience desired. "Company benefits include liberal vacation"; there's a joke in there somewhere. No relocation offered.

You gotta love this: In the middle of this paltry assortment of ads, there's an advertisement from the Singapore Economic Development Board, suggesting that chemists or chemical engineers with "passion for academic or industrial research" visit contactsingapore.sg for ads for work there. Following the links will lead you to 11 positions for working chemists, some for quite senior ones. (I've always wanted to see Singapore; I'll have to give up my love of Big League Chew, though.)

7 comments:

  1. Mmmm...Big League Chew...my favorite had Wade Boggs on the side (Strawberry, I think?!?)

    But, over there, Big League Chew = someone taking batting practice on you with a bamboo pole.

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  2. Haha...how many more years will it be I wonder until everyone's first thought in connection to Singapore ISN'T about that stupid kid getting caned?

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  3. It's funny, there are only so many references to be made about Singapore. You can talk about chicken rice (the national dish -- and my go-to comment), you can crack jokes about the restrictive laws and well, that's about it. I hear their national airline is lovely.

    Maybe I need to read more about Singapore.

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  4. From what I hear, Singapore has an outstanding and fairly inexpensive food, well-run public services and lot of gorgeous highly-educated women. The weather can be oppressively humid and the traffic jams are a problem. (But you get these problems in Miami too). I have an European friend who traveled the whole southeast Asia as a semiconductor-processing equipment service engineer and he mentioned that of all the countries he saw (Japan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia etc) Singapore was the only one where he would be happy to retire.

    Also, Singapore government has been investing generously into biotech so maybe we shouldn't put them down, lah.

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  5. I graduated with a BS chem degree from Utexas late 2009. I did plenty of math and half of the engineering track at Utexas. I have spent a good chunk of the last year and a half in a leadership position at the retail job I worked during college. I don't want to do this for the rest of my life, I hate retail. You guys paint a pretty ugly picture of the chem work life and pay. Here in Austin there are plenty of tech companies friendly to UT. Do you guys think I should try to get me an engineering entry level job and go that route?

    ReplyDelete
  6. A7:32:

    It's really hard to say. I think working as a B.S.-level chemist can be a good job, especially if you find a position with the right company. While I (we?) discuss some of the negative issues with life as a professional chemist, I like my work a lot and don't think about changing fields very often.

    That being said, I have no doubt that if you were to complete your engineering education, your job prospects as a UT engineering graduate would probably be immediately brighter than if you decided to work as a chemist. Also, the Austin tech job market may be friendly enough that you wouldn't need to complete your engineering education (I suspect so, anyway.)

    Best wishes to you in your decision.

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  7. These days I see quite enough job postings for scientists with polymer chemistry background, lab technicians performing chemical analysis and chemical engineers who know how to calculate heat transfer and propose the correct pipe size in a plant.
    Only the synthetic organic chemists are screwed - nobody wants them anymore.

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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