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Comment by joshuahedlund | Hacker News Reader

If I’m an experienced programmer who is fascinated by molecular biology and would love to transition from e-commerce to biotech, what sorts of jobs would I look for or what would I do to prepare for such a switch?

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The easiest and fastest and most financially preferable option would probably be to join the software engineering team of a fairly software-oriented biotech company and then, once you're established, let it be known that your personal career advancement aims are to move more in the direction of scientific work. That would be fine at many companies, assuming you can make them think of you as a valuable asset for your software skills.

A lot of job descriptions I see are looking for people who already have the scientific formal education background and expect them to do the software engineering aspect too. I haven't really seen generic Software Engineer job descriptions where a science background is the secondary requirement. If you have any pointers I would greatly appreciate them!

Hm, we must be thinking of slightly different things. Lots of biotech companies have pure software positions. Here are some examples of software positions that require no scientific background whatsoever:

https://boards.greenhouse.io/invitae/jobs/4196489?gh_jid=419...

https://www.recursion.com/careers?gh_jid=3992017 "A biology background is not necessary, but intellectual curiosity is a must!"

https://ekgn.fa.us6.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperienc...

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