Hello all,
I want to share my experience and for advice/guidance.
I did my masters degree in the UK in bioinformatics and systems biology. After graduation, I interned at Illumina for 3 months as a Bioinformatics Scientist. After that I worked as a graduate software engineer in an e-commerce company. Unfortunately, I lost my job due to redundancy. I now lost my visa too and need to go back to my country which is a war zone. I always wanted to due bioinformatics, but the job market is tough and now my personal circumstances are adding to the difficulty. I am worried that when I go back, I will work any job to pay the bills and might end up not being able to develop my skills. What do you think the best course of action is?
Is there a way to do any kind of remote internships or roles in bioinformatics? I really want to continue growing in the field, but the circumstances are against me. I am willing to work on any remote project even if not paid, just to continue learning.
I appreciate any advice. Thanks.
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mustafa.kpn •
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First of all, terribly sorry that you’re dealing with this.
It’s hard to say, but in this situation, I think it may be good to prioritize staying connected to the field in ways that are both visible and sustainable, even if that means you have to take other work for a while. So, that could mean building a small public “portfolio” (e.g., on GitHub) of reproducible analyses, scripts, pipelines, figure reproductions from papers, and short scientific writeups or READMEs explaining what you did and why. In my opinion, that last part matters a lot: bioinformatics is not just scripting, statistical analyses, implementing algorithms, etc.; actual biology and the ability to explain analyses clearly are super important.
It may also help to look over this answer. I’d also search for writing by Ming Tommy Tang, who has written a lot about building practical bioinformatics skills and projects. Reproducing analyses or figures from papers is a very good way to keep learning while also creating portfolio material you can show people later.
Wishing you the best.
I forgot to mention this: I generally recommend against working for free, even if the goal is just to keep learning.
The reason is that you’ve trained in a relatively rare and valuable skill set, and even if you’re still in an early, “still-learning”* stage of your career, your time and labor are valuable. In my indirect and direct experience, scientists who want or accept free technical work are often not the kinds of people you want to work with, let alone build your career around: too many broken promises**, unrealistic expectations, and vague/unfulfilled assurances that one or another opportunity or bit of work will somehow “lead to something.”
If you’re going to work for free, work for yourself by, e.g., building and polishing your portfolio.
* In my opinion, a lot of people doing this work never really leave the “still-learning” stage—and that’s great. There’s so much to learn and do.
** Even one is too many.
Do you have a CV you could send along? vincent then my middle initial then my last name at google's mail