Job:seeking a position in bioinformatics within Germany

Question

[vinejara]

Hello everyone, Germany

I'm a very enthusiastic and motivated senior bioinformatician, with experience in 5 large centers for Structural Biology and Life Sciences in UK, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Russia.

I'm seeking a position in bioinformatics within Germany.

I'd be very grateful if anynone can give me some suggestions or seeking staff. I'm very interested in the new fields of bioinformatics research, connected with - proteomics, genomics, NGSs analysis

Thanks
Victor

[Ram]

Devon Ryan

[Devon Ryan]

You paged?

[Devon Ryan]

Exactly what sorts of positions are you after (if you're a senior scientist I expect you want a more senior position)? In academia or industry? You mentioned structural biology, exactly what sorts of things within that field have you worked on?

[vinejara]

I have work permit only for Germany, otherwise, I'd look anywhere, as it is indeed doesn't matter - but important is to contribute good science.

I worked for Structural Genomics, where I am well-recognized for accelerating computational NMR by 100 times by 'fast' methods.

Being Sr., means that I have done really many interesting other projects: mechanism of amyloid formation of prion proteins, protein folding & stability and Alzheimer like diseases. Drug design using genomic sequences in the family using alignment by their spatial structures. and much work on improving quality of protein structures by various means like increasing experimental resolution to maximally possible and associated 'sparse' methods.

[vinejara]

I looking for both Senior and "simple" Scientist roles - as for me important is to do science more, rather than manage it more.

[vinejara]

me, not paged.

For me really interesting would be to "connect the dots", ie to integrate multiple databases incl. new NGSs and gene expression and metabolomics data into some answers for specific questions, using bioinformatics tools. In my previous research I worked with very large datasets, which I analysed using various methods incl. factor analysis, I am author of couple of new methods/tools of the latter.

[Devon Ryan]

I was quite literally contacted 15 minutes ago by a head hunter with some positions in Germany. If you'd like to be connected, just send me your contact info ([REDACTED]) and I'll connect the two of you. I have no clue if you're really interested in these or not or even what the details are, but they're a lead at least.

[vinejara]

Yes, please - I am very actively looking, I think I have lots of hard problem solving expertise: [REDACTED]

[Devon Ryan]

I sent that to the person who contacted my. Best of luck with your search.

[vinejara]

Ryan, JFY - the head hunter still did not contact me, so i do not know what he had.

[Devon Ryan]

Weird, I just sent you his contact info via email.

Answer 1

[Devon Ryan]

Given your background, your best bet might be in industry. The larger pharma companies (Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, etc.) only advertise positions on their own sites, which makes the job hunt somewhat annoying, since you have to directly check each of them at somewhat regular intervals. For the smaller pharma companies, things like nature jobs, and the typical jobs sites (just google for things like "bioinformatiker job", "bioinformatiker stelle", etc. in German and English, since sometimes they're only in German). You'll also find a lot of post-doc positions this way, in the off-chance that you're interested in them. This is also pretty much the only method that I've found useful for finding staff scientist positions in Germany. This method will also produce anything posted at EMBL, since they're always looking for people (though I've only seen ads for more NGS-related positions, so they might not be interested in someone with your background).

If you happen to have a spouse that also can work in Germany, then perhaps he/she can get a position nearer to Switzerland. Basel and Zürich seem to have more going on at the pharma level than Germany, so being near the border would allow you to be a "Grenzgänger".

Anyway, if you've already been in Germany for 3 years then you at least only need another 2 to get a Niederlassungserlaubnis, which should then make life a bit simpler.

[vinejara]

Yes, thank you for detailed comments.

I am 6 years in Germany and have received Niederlassungserlaubnis. 2 PhDs from my group have found jobs in industry without any problems right after PhD defense, like Siemens, I tried myself also there but they seem to only take young people in.

Due to my _Seniority_, universities also begin to not prefer me, as they have to pay full salary with socials after 40.

So, I am kind of stuck at the moment. I am trying both directions still. Ideally, I'd train people further, like I did for my PhDs in my group, but it was funded by my grant, of limited duration. I was not great enough to become a Professor, but I am a good Scientist, and much less good organizer and manager. So, this is a problem, called 'postdoc trap'; but I am trying to solve it. Maybe indeed in industry I could be of big use, if they 'd took senior people too.

[Devon Ryan]

It does seem to be more difficult to get jobs with increasing seniority, there's just no way around that (particularly in Germany, where ageism isn't only the norm but written into the law). I don't know of any good method around this. I was recently able to find a staff scientist position, so I've finally escaped the postdoc trap.

At least with your Niederlassungserlaubnis you can apply in Switzerland too and just live in Germany.

Once or twice a year I see posts for core facility directors and you'd probably be an ideal candidate for that, at least if I were doing the hiring. I unfortunately don't have any better advice. The jobs climate for anyone with actual experience isn't really ideal.

Answer 2

[A. Domingues]

Would something like this be suitable?

lindkedin is a decent source of jobs ads for the industry.

[vinejara]

Thank you, I have applied for it. lindkedin is on my watch.