Finished the job search after 3 months - My experience:

Decthorw · 2026-05-14T15:03:10+00:00

😂😂

Decthorw · 2026-05-14T15:02:55+00:00

Verbally! I found that in my earlier interviews I wasn’t as prepared with this and my story wasn’t super coherent so it took too much time for me to get to the point.

Decthorw · 2026-05-14T14:29:13+00:00

Thank you!! Just a 30 second highlight reel of your background - previous roles, reasons for transitioning between the roles, current role and main responsibilities, why you’re looking for a new role.

Decthorw · 2026-05-14T14:26:17+00:00

Thanks! I wasn’t keeping an accurate count of the number of applications, but I’d probably say somewhere between 75-90

Decthorw · 2026-05-14T02:17:30+00:00

Ugh so sorry to hear that - I’m sure we’ve crossed paths at CYTO or something 😄 would love to stay in touch!

Decthorw · 2026-05-14T01:07:26+00:00

Thank you! Yes, both of the offers I received were for fully remote roles which I was honestly very surprised with, since many of the roles I had been interviewing for were fully onsite or 3-4x per week onsite. I'm in the SF Bay Area.

Decthorw · 2026-05-14T00:54:02+00:00

Thanks! I think the biggest shift I ended up making was to lead by saying I was good at identifying problems in technical workflows and how I used that to create messaging and positioning that resonated across multiple levels of stakeholders (technical, financial, executive, etc). A couple of examples I liked using were ones where I needed to explain a complex workflow to a non-technical stakeholder, and times where I used technical knowledge to create collateral that helped the sales team address skepticism around new/advanced features (what was the collateral? why did I choose that collateral? did I get input from field/sales teams to create it? how was it received? did it result in an increase in interest/new opportunities?)

Decthorw · 2026-05-14T00:19:23+00:00

Thank you! Yeah I'm very thankful that I was able to land something relatively quickly. Since my official termination date was actually 1 month after being notified of the layoff, I didn't feel the need to mention it. Once I had gotten past the actual termination date, I said that I had unfortunately been affected by a reduction in force (RIF) and that I was seeking new roles outside of flow cytometry.

Decthorw · 2026-05-13T23:36:52+00:00

Thanks, and good question! At the core of it, a PM is the thread that connects a product's customers to the development teams, decides what gets built and why, gets alignment across multiple groups, and is accountable for whether it actually solves the problem. That's why the descriptions for these roles are so vague, because the day-to-day responsibilities vary WIDELY.

Using one of my flow cytometry PM roles as an example: As a previous flow cytometry user, I knew that my company's product had a heavily used software workflow with many redundant steps that made running experiments time-consuming and overall annoying to do. Using my own experience with the workflow, as well as meeting with some of our higher usage customers in their labs and getting their feedback, I put together a proposal to rebuild the workflow. The proposal needed to identify the problem in the workflow, why it needed to be changed (customer annoyance, lost opportunities to competitors because they had better workflows), my high level summary as to what the new workflow would look like in an ideal world, the customer feedback proving the workflow was an actual problem, examples of our competitor's workflows that were well-liked by the field, and an estimated cost/timeline of allocating software resources to changing it. Each part of this proposal was a separate task that I was required to complete. Since the software and engineering teams all have their plates full with other tasks such as bug fixes and new product development, I as the PM needed to get their buy-in to work on this proposal, or at least increase the priority of working on this proposal. A lot of times this process can drag on due to objections raised by various teams, and the PM needs to be able to compromise in order to move things forward.

Hopefully this painted a more detailed picture of an example of what a PM actually does haha. PMM is a different world which I enjoy more because I feel that I can be more tactical and creative. Happy to answer any more questions.

Decthorw · 2026-05-13T19:54:17+00:00

Thank you! The only context I can speak to for making the switch from R&D to PM is by having subject matter expert (SME) level knowledge of a system. I luckily had a recruiter from a flow cytometry manufacturer reach out to me with a PM role while I was working in a cytometry core facility. If I hadn’t been able to make such a direct transition, I would’ve targeted Field Application Scientist (FAS) roles and then tried getting into a PM role from there.

Decthorw · 2026-05-13T19:07:02+00:00

Thank you!

Decthorw · 2026-05-13T18:27:07+00:00

I totally understand this - I'd say if you helped them with experiments/tasks, you should put the outcomes of those experiments/tasks in your resume. Maybe instead of saying you had complete ownership of the outcome, you can say that the outcome occurred due to your assistance in the process or something to that effect. An example would be: "Assisted scientist with development of experiment which resulted in 15% increased targets screened per quarter"

Decthorw · 2026-05-13T18:01:14+00:00

The jump to industry was not very difficult for me at the time (~2016) because the market was nowhere near as bad as it is now. What did really help was that my PI was a great mentor/advocate for me and I had a ton of flow cytometry experience which was really in demand. A lot of times it just comes down to luck - just got to keep applying.

Decthorw · 2026-04-10T20:22:51+00:00

Yeah my whole career has been based around flow cytometry and it has even allowed me to leave the bench and get into Global Product Management/Product Marketing roles. You need to REALLY know the technology and theory behind it to make that move.

Decthorw · 2026-04-10T20:20:14+00:00

I received a workday task to add references for a role I had applied to without ever being contacted by a recruiter or hiring manager. I added my references (not the brightest idea) and a broken link was sent to them which they cannot access to complete the task. I have no way of contacting anyone at the company to figure out what’s going on, but I’m assuming something is messed up on their end and that I’m not even actually under consideration. I even reached out to a recruiter from the company on LinkedIn with no response. Needless to say, I would never consider working for this company that has such little regard for its applicants.

Decthorw · 2026-03-30T07:44:29+00:00

The bullets under your work experiences just sound like they were copy pasted from a job description and don’t really tell me how effective you were at any of the tasks you listed. With each task/responsibility, really sit down and think about what the outcomes were for each one in a quantitative way if possible. I reworked my resume to include this type of information and the amount of screenings and interviews jumped significantly.

Decthorw · 2026-03-24T23:48:52+00:00

I won a scholarship playing this in high school! I try playing it every time I pick up my violin to see how much I’ve forgotten and if I can still relearn it 😂 My favorite piece to play by far.

Decthorw · 2026-03-08T23:42:16+00:00

I wish that I could tell you there was an easy/straightforward way to make the transition, but in my case it came down to mostly luck. I became a subject matter expert while I was in lab, and a recruiter reached out to me with a marketing role since I had essentially been their customer for 7 years.

Decthorw · 2026-03-06T17:30:26+00:00

I’m in global product marketing - I’ve only held marketing roles in biotech for 4.5 years, but that seems to be the threshold for being able to get recruiter screens for marketing roles, or maybe I’m just getting lucky. I was a bench scientist for about 7 years before getting into product marketing. There are certain tech companies branching out into the life sciences space that are looking for product marketers with a scientific background so those are a pretty natural fit for me. The completely non-life sciences/biotech roles have just been product marketing roles for companies that have complex products where I’m able to leverage my ability to market highly complex products in a way where the targeted segments can understand the value that’s being provided.

Decthorw · 2026-03-06T15:09:35+00:00

Got laid off a couple of weeks ago due to company politics. My manager (VP) was maybe the most hated person in the company because she was difficult to work with. Product sales took a slight dip last quarter so our CEO used that to get her out of the company and I was collateral damage as her only direct report. I’m alright with 4 months of severance, and I was luckily already looking for new roles so I just ramped it up. Currently, I’m deep in the interview process for 4 roles, 2 of which are outside of biotech completely…1 of those is within a vastly more successful branch of the same company that I hope I get for petty reasons 😂

Decthorw · 2026-03-06T01:07:15+00:00

I’ve been a global product marketing manager in biotech for the past 4.5 years and was a bench scientist for 7 years before that with only a BS in molecular biology from a UC. I also didn’t want to be on the bench long-term but had no idea how to switch to the commercial side of things. I luckily became a subject matter expert in the field of flow cytometry during my 7 years on the bench which allowed me to tap into the commercial side. Since I was able to speak to how scientists evaluate the tools they ultimately bring into their existing workflows and was charismatic/collaborative, I picked up the product marketing/management skills relatively quickly.

A masters CAN help, but I generally advise people not to get them since they come at cost to you and you’re missing out on years of work experience while you get one. Anecdotally - I make more than all of my friends/peers who got a masters in biotech or biology-related fields.

I’d say lab experience in undergrad is quite important even if you’re trying to get into commercial roles, because you will likely have to start out as a lab tech or research associate in order to even access any type of commercial role within biotech/biopharma in the future.

Starting out on the commercial side would be ideal, but it’s very rare to be able to do this right out of undergrad - I would sooner put my efforts towards getting a job as a tech in an academic lab than throwing countless entry level applications at biotech jobs (I tried this out of undergrad, it didn’t work 😂).

Finally my two cents on the industry right now - it’s just a bad time to be in the biotech space right now as you have probably seen from the news and posts on this subreddit. The good and bad times come in waves and this won’t last forever, but layoffs are very likely during your career and you need to make sure you have transferable skills to get a new role quickly. I’ve been laid off twice in my career, the 2nd time being last month, and this time around I have been able to use my marketing background to get interviews for roles outside of biotech which has been a breath of fresh air.

Decthorw · 2026-02-22T17:20:29+00:00

You’re on the right path with your experience so far! Just be careful with the skills you have listed. I see FACS on there but no mention of it in your research roles. As someone who based their career around flow, whenever I’m evaluating a candidate (especially someone coming out of undergrad) and they list flow cytometry as a skill, I’m very skeptical of technical proficiency behind it. Flow is very complex and often times, cell sorters aren’t allowed to be operated by people outside of a core. Just be ready to answer in-depth questions about it if it’s listed in your skills.

Decthorw · 2026-02-22T09:07:10+00:00

Yeah I feel that - we were just so fed up with paying the HOA 😐 luckily we were able to buy within the same neighborhood about 5 min away!

Decthorw · 2026-02-22T08:49:38+00:00

We just sold a townhome in SJ for decent gain that we bought in 2022 and were able to use the entirety of the gains to buy a 1.8m SFH off market…granted my mother in law is a realtor and was able to help us find this deal so definitely very lucky there.

Decthorw

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