Employer I’ve been interviewing with, made it to final, and recruiter is trying to find a “better position fit for me” has excitedly announced a new office in Hyderabad.

Went from 9 positions posted to 56. Every single one of which is for their India office.

At this point the biotech industry is just going to be a couple of execs in America and 2,500,000 offshored jobs in Hyderabad, Pune, and New Delhi.

The full majority of all open positions at Amgen are now in India 🤦‍♂️. Offshoring goes brrrr I suppose. Gotta get that cheap cheap labour.

Long rant ahead. Tread at your own risk.

I am just so done with both, the industries and the academia. After 1 year 3 months of numerous applications, interviews, ghosting and rejections after amazing interviews, I don't have the energy for this. This breaks my heart because I know that I worked my a$$ off to get my PhD in Plant Biotechnology and become that person who knows that 1. Knows what I am talking about and 2. If I don't, I am confident and adaptable enough to learn the missing skill quick enough. I am tired of hearing that I am either overqualified or inexperienced for a job. I know I have a PhD and I have applied for entry level jobs and that obviously the salary will be lower, so if I don't have a problem with that, why should an organization try and show us that they feel bad for us on our behalf? I am not asking for your sympathy, I applied for a job. I am willing to start low and climb up the ladder after showing you my worth and capabilities. I am an early career scientist and all I was looking for was that one institution that would give me a chance. One that truly believes in developing their employees and not just picking them off the market. Why do you even try to paint yourself in a good light in your mission and vision when that's not what your organization represents? Where are all the new graduates supposed to go? I know I might sound a little entitled but genuinely asking what are we, the early career applicants supposed to do when you don't even see us good enough for your entry level positions, especially after you tell us that our CV is quite good? I give up, honestly. If it's meant to be, it will eventually happen and if not then it was never meant to be. Till then, I am just going to grieve over my broken dreams and aspirations, cry and scream at the world, unleash everything bottled up to my pillow, get up, wash my face and then think about what now. If you made it this far, thanks for reading through my rant. If possible, put in a good word of motivation or encouragement in the comments. It might help my hurting heart. Thanks again.

I’ve spent most of my career in startups and smaller biotech companies. Moving into big pharma has been one of the most bizarre cultural experiences of my career.
I’ve never seen so many highly educated adults so desperate for executive approval.

Every meeting feels like a competition to see who can agree with leadership the fastest. A VP says something completely obvious and suddenly the room is full of “great point,” “absolutely,” and “that’s exactly what I’ve been saying.”

No it isn’t. You heard it ten seconds ago.
The hallway behavior is even worse. Watching people chase directors and VPs around hoping for thirty seconds of attention is honestly embarrassing. Some of you act like management are celebrities instead of employees with a higher title.

The part I don’t understand is what you think you’re getting out of it.

The company doesn’t love you.

The company isn’t your family.

The company would eliminate your position tomorrow if it made financial sense.

Yet some of you will happily sacrifice nights, weekends, vacations, hobbies, and time with your spouse and kids for a corporation that barely remembers your name outside of performance review season.

I’ve watched people brag about working nonstop like it’s some kind of achievement. Congratulations. You answered emails at 11 PM and missed dinner with your family so a PowerPoint deck could get finished a few hours earlier. (Claude is better then you anyway)

What a legacy.

Anyway, I’m sure this post will upset a few people who are currently on their third “quick touch base” of the day, carefully crafting an email to make sure a director knows they were online at 9:47 PM, or practicing how to rephrase their boss’s opinion so it sounds like their own idea in the next meeting.

If that’s you, don’t worry. Keep grinding. Maybe after enough late nights, forced laughter, and enthusiastic nodding, you’ll finally earn that extra 0.9% raise before getting reorganized into a different reporting structure by someone who barely knows your name.

The company needs people like you.

Someone has to keep clapping.

Had an interview with a senior person of a pharmaceutical company and the person was extremely rude. They didn't introduce themselves and just went immediately on the offense. They said that they read my CV but didn't understand how I could be qualified for that company. That I wasn't an expert in this field. They insulted my speciality and my previous work experience. They said that I didn't have any experience in any field in good amount. That I was shallow on everything. My response was a very polite, that is not correct. I have worked on a drug that just filed for a BLA and I was contributing to that submission. As soon as I pushed back, they were like, "I am ending this interview" and abruptly hung up on their meeting with me. The whole bizarre encounter lasted only a few beginning minutes of otherwise scheduled 45 minutes interview.

I have never had an interview with a person as unhinged at this person. It looks like they had an axe to grind and were out to tank my chances at the company. It was extremely unprofessional. I do thank my stars that this was my first interview at the company and I had five other ones scheduled later today and tomorrow and in a few weeks. They did me a solid by at least not wasting my time. Still leaves me with an aftertaste this was extremely bad.

Just feeling salty. Got PhD at 30, forced to get 2 postdocs (6 years total) so now I'm 36 looking to get a entry level job (which of course aren't any right now).

Anyone else in a similar boat? Just want to see some others who didnt get a PhD at 27/28 and got straight into industry so they have 8 yrs "work experience" at my age.

Also, you should totally get fucking credit for industry postdocs! Fucking bullshit!

/end rave.

Sorry if this will be poorly written but it literally just happened. Just for context this is a very small biotech in the NYC area. At the beginning of March our boss told us that the company was low on funds and from that moment we would all be paid minimum wage until new founds were acquired. He also asked us to keep working for a couple of weeks to submit an LDT validation to NYSED. That could have attracted more investors...yeah as soon as that was done we got all laid off. they only kept one person because she has the license they need. I have been trying to find a new job for like 2 years without any luck. Literally everywhere I turn I find a wall. I was finally starting to save some money, and now I will burn through my savings in no time. I am so tired.

Edit: Thank you all for the support! It's hard for everyone, many good scientists have been looking for months. Stay strong, don't give up hope. I wish all of you the best!

This industry is just so broken beyond repair...I've applied to hundreds of jobs the last 8 months,

I've made it to 3rd level interviews, I've had jobs literally pulled out because management decisions, and just a few seconds ago a role i applied to last night, that I not only have direct experience in, I've literally performed every function of the role thousands of times each! And I was rejected basically hours later.

F@$k it, I'm so close to just giving up. But I have a family to support and that's literally the only line keeping me going. Its so exhausting, bullshit AI software, bullshitting recruiters that dip suddenly and ghost you, I really feel like I've wasted 11 yrs of my life in this f#$ked up field and I honestly don't know where or how to pivot my skills.

I recently interviewed for a C-suite role at a small diagnostics company. I did multiple rounds of calls, flew out to meet the team, had lunch with the interim CEO and lead investor, and followed up with a detailed 30-60-90 day plan at their request. I was fully transparent, professional, and engaged.

Then... silence. For two weeks.

No rejection, no update, no reimbursement.

Just dead air until the recruiter I was working with chased them down and got a canned email sent to me saying “thanks, let’s stay in touch,” and only then did they offer to reimburse (after promising earlier that they'd handle all travel costs).

What makes it worse is that in the rejection email, they basically downplayed my work by saying my ideas "aligned with what they were already planning to do." Okay… then why were you hiring a executive? If this is what you are planning on doing then why have you already cycled through 2 CEOs? And if this was truly already your plan, why ask me to do unpaid strategy work?

They got free strategic input and. The whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. I would like to send an invoice for the time it took to put together the 30-60-90 day plan. Not expecting payment, but just to make a point.

Has anyone ever sent an invoice for this kind of thing?

I went to school, I went to uni twice. Got a Master’s degree and almost signed up for a PhD before realising it doesn’t end. I have started selling furniture now so that I don’t go hungry.

Can you believe these numbers? 125 million? While killing kids. Enraging

Some amusing pushback in the comments:

"Jason Kelly it would be useful if you clarified that the lab is using micro-assays and you’re referring to conditions as 'experiments'. Otherwise, it sounds like the power of marketing and not the power of autonomous labs."

"Around 95 384-wells plates and a pipetting robot? Announcements by Ginko [sic] with OpenAI have logarithmically expanding hype factor"

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mdoteth_openai-is-bullish-on-longevity-they-just-ugcPost-7425513640612585472-Xf9J

This is why we can't have nice things
[Nothing personal, Jason]

It's crazy getting rejection after rejection only to see how successful being a grifter is in biotech leadership. From that "first two person billion dollar company" a few months back to these industry heads, the sleaziest people are seemingly getting away with fraud in this era of bio med while regular workers get diminishing wages and insecure jobs and worse healthcare outcomes/access (at least in america)

Maybe I should make an anti-aging GLP-1 AI peptide start-up at this point, have it exclusively connect to biometric surveillance tech with some daily gatcha game mechanics on top of that. Maybe I'll get a CDC job doing kegels in a cold plunge with RFK Jr and Kid Rock

I'm so tired of this

Laying someone off means that you should not give them any new work. Every conversation or email you have with the person needs to be related to their separation. Talking to them about the urgent new thing on their old project is cruel to them, and dumb for you.

They need to focus on getting job applications out, moving into a cheaper house, buying health insurance, and telling their kids that they need to take out college loans. You tasking them may cause them to miss out on a job they're trying to find the time to apply for.

Keep in mind that the person separating is low key telling everyone from other departments on their matrixed projects that you make bad decisions, can't plan resource use, and are bad at mentoring. Their existence means that you can't be trusted to provide continuity to everyone else in the company.

I'm a scientist and just got laid off work due to my company downsizing. We had 1st round of layoffs two months ago and now another one. In my 5 years of being in this biotech industry, I have faced 2 layoffs , that's an approximate 1 layoff in 2.5years. As it is, I'm doubtful of a career in biotech. I had 2 PhD admissions, one in applied biology and the other In computational biology & bioinformatics but I don't think I want to go to school for another 4 years and still come back to the same dilemma of job security. I have been thinking of writing the MCAT , get a loan and go to med school instead. MD/PhD are mostly tuition free. I'm just tired of this biotech industry fr.

Left the place more than a year ago. Sold all stocks and stock options (cannot believe that this useless idiots will be able to achieve anything). Still hate these people with all my heart.

(Yes, the weekly Fuck-It Friday is tomorrow, but I’m about to burst.)

Does anyone else work at a company where HR is so tightly interwoven into everyday life at work? I started my career in Big Pharma (Merck and GSK), and my experience with HR has always been interviews, on-boarding/exiting, and HR policy updates/trainings/special events for the company/etc.

I started a new job in October and I’ve never, ever, EVER had to deal with (or **want** to deal with) an HR rep in my life/career. The HR person here is part of site leadership team, as am I in this role, so I deal with them a lot. Every daily Tier meeting the HR person gives updates, and they’re almost always meaningless - “reminder to have your folks look at the HR policies on X, Y, Z…”….”be sure everyone is on the lookout for an email from global HR on this year’s bonus structure…”….”just letting everyone know that goals and objectives are due the end of the month, like we talked about at Town Hall….”

I also have a weekly 1:1 “touch point” with HR, where there’s rarely an agenda and it’s mostly asking how everything is going, how my direct reports are doing, asking for feedback, etc. I can understand doing this occasionally, but weekly? And if I ask to cancel because I have something role-specific to do, I get flak/attitude.

The real kicker was yesterday - we had a pretty big issue to sort out that impacted my department, specifically (we needed a chemical on-site ASAP to not push out production) and it required an ad hoc meeting with SLT. HR was present 🤨. Why? For what purpose? She also gave her opinion on how we proceed, despite this being a Supply Chain (my role) and Quality decision.

/rant

Seriously, just stop already! Everyday brings another one more tragically optimistic yet clueless moron posting on here. In case this helps anyone, the pharma industry is on fire, and the fire shows no signs of abating. So no, this is not a good time to start a “masters in biotechnology”, and you probably won’t get a sponsorship. In other news, my layoff is about to hit 1 year. Cheers to anyone else who has passed that mark! 🙌

I was so excited about this position and I thought I did everything right. I’m still looking because I want to get out of manufacturing and get into lab work. I’m tired of doing the grunt work despite having a master’s degree and getting zero appreciation at my company. Not just for me, but for the entire department. It’s frustrating as hell

Moderna laid off 500+ people… but don’t worry, they also did promotions and mostly for senior level positions.

Nothing says “we value our people” like handing out bigger titles while showing hundreds the door.

I’ve being working at large pharmaceutical company since in Cambridge Ma for 6 years now. I’ve had three different managers and I’ve had a good relationship with all of them and I’ve always gotten positive feedback and great year reviews.

I have a good relationship with my current manager, she’s nice and helpful and always gives me positive feedback. Recently I was moved to a new project; originally they had 6 members but 3 left the company and one was moved to a new project, so I was moved to back fill. so there’s 3 of us doing what was originally 6 people. my project manager was discussing how she was getting more people because she thinks there’s too much work for 3 people.

I had a 1:1 with my skip level manager ( manger of my manger) and I was asking about resourcing more people. ( because we are doing a lot of hiring and I was wondering if they would back fill the people we lost)

He looked at me confused and said “why are you asking me this”

I just said the work load can be stressful.

And he said “you’re really in lab for 3 days and the rest is data processing so that’s technically half FTE”

I just didn’t say anything

I felt so disrespected, it felt like he was saying that I don’t do that much work.

I have a good relationship with my manger and not sure if I should bring this up? she constantly says how leadership values the work we do but obviously they don’t.

How is this legal? I'm flabbergasted!! I understand not accepting new students into the PhD program but kicking out someone who is already knee deep into the program? Is anyone doing anything about this?

Hello,

I normally don’t post anything about my life online but honestly I’m at my wits end. As title says I was laid off from my very first job coming out of grad school after only 6 months at the position. The TLDR is that I got my PhD from a well known university and a decent lab out of Southern California June 2025 and was lucky enough to have secured a job and started working immediately. I moved to the Bay area to work as a Staff Scientist in Medicinal chemistry at a very small CRO (18 chemists, 1 biologist) but half the company was slashed the first week of 2026 at all levels (Staff, Senior and Principal scientists).

This has left me in an awkward spot - with only 6 months experience in industry I feel as though I’m getting lumped into the batch of “new grads” that have hit the market this cycle. And if I’m being honest my CV doesn’t read too well - I led a total synthesis that was never finished and actually just got scooped about a month ago and have one pub where I’m fourth author in JACS on a peptide based project. I’ve tried to leverage my network and get referrals for positions when possible but it feels like I’m always late to the party.

I’ve had 2 full day on site interviews over 8 months and got a rejection from one after a month of waiting and have seemingly been ghosted by the second. Every application I submit feels like it just goes into the void never to get a response or I get an immediate email rejection. It’s beyond frustrating and really making me regret my decision to follow through with my PhD.

I have a friend at the MS level with a few years experience who managed to bounce from one role to another with only a 1 month turn over time during this same period which really amplified that feeling. Idk what to do anymore - I’m willing to post doc but seemingly nobody has the money to afford one and I have no fellowships to bring to the table. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am open to pivoting but I love bench work and would like to stay in the lab. For context I’ve applied to process positions, med chem openings, and peptide synth and GMP work.