danieltillett

Do you have a professional background in biotech or at least the life sciences?

Or pay people less to do the pleasant jobs.

How did you end up on this team?

As an employer I always read the cover letters. You had better have a slight clue of what job you are applying for or your application ends up in the garbage.

A meta question on the WSJ headline - do American really use the plural for linen to refer to sheets, etc?

The E in AAVE is English not Language.

This is a seperate (important) issue.

The reason why is it is easier to train a biologist to become a programmer than it is to train a programmer to become a biologist. Sure the quality of biologist-turned-programmer code will often not be great, but it will usually answer the question asked.

How about which jail cell you are placed in if arrested?

This is why you should not ever dedicate yourself to a single project no matter how much you believe in it. You should at a minimum have one back up project that will generate publishable results no matter what happens.

Sometimes the company has no choice as the alternative is everyone loses their job.

I don’t think employees should think of the company as their family, but don’t get into the mindset that all employers treat their employees as disposable cogs.

Yes, but it is not quite so clean. Employers are humans and in my experience they care far more about the people they know (employees) than abstract people (shareholders).

Many employers agonise over laying off employees, I would go so far as to say the vast majority do. Many employers try to keep on employees in situations where they really should be laid off, putting their own jobs at risk.

Don’t get into the the mindset that employers are all psychopaths - not only is it not true, but it will damage your career thinking this way.

When someone’s future salary is tied to acquiring $new/$shiny skill then you are going to get this sort of rational behaviour from the engineers. Smart people respond to incentives.

I think you should get out and see what farmers are doing to the wild mice.