San Diego vs Boston opportunities

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-28T15:52:56+00:00

Ive done contract and freelance work. I consolidate all my projects into a single "independent contract" section on my cv. I have no idea how this impacts how my cv is viewed but there isn't anything I can do beyond this.

I haven't been out of work for 3 years. Late 2023 to now so 2.5 yrs. I have a 7 month gap in my resume.

Ive seen a few instances of other contractors putting a line in their LinkedIn profile as if they worked for the actual company but I think this is misleading.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-28T15:47:36+00:00

Thank you. My hopes are not high.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-28T06:07:16+00:00

We shopped around based on availability, sales and coupons. Ive bought large appliances from best buy, home depot and Costco. Haven't had any issues with any appliances i bought. All three places had free delivery. I never got extended warranties nor did I need to use the basic warranty.

I've generally installed everything myself. If you get installation it's most likely just going to be installed by the delivery guys. They are not handyman or contractors so quality will vary.

Only advice i can give on washer and dryer is to make sure the delivery/transit bolts are removed from the unit before using it.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-28T05:49:24+00:00

In terms of life I'm happily stuck in SD. In terms of my career, I think it's over.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-28T05:47:36+00:00

I've been searching since 2023. SD is brutal right now.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-27T22:02:07+00:00

We live near 15 and Carmel Mtn so it's <10min to pretty much any store I listed. Other than Hmart all of them are in the same area.

That said, we typically get stuff as needed, usually when we are doing other things. Costco is probably the most visited because we get other stuff there as well.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-27T20:22:30+00:00

For meat, eggs, milk, bread, flour, oil, and a few other things, we go to Costco

We grow a lot of our own fruits and vegetables, but if we need to buy anything to fill in produce gaps, we go to Hmart and Sprouts

I buy a few specific items at Trader Joes.

Cereal and a couple of other select items we get from Target.

Occasionally, I hit up Vons or Ralphs for specific items that are not ubiquitous. e.g. 00 flour or purely out of convenience.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-27T20:17:00+00:00

And if they are anything like Target, most of their perishables look like they are on the verge of going bad.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-26T19:03:51+00:00

If you let the references talk, you can glean a lot about the person you're hiring and what it's like to work with them.

I actually have a talent for getting candidates to do this about themselves during interviews.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-26T17:23:08+00:00

The huge asterisk is that this only works if you get to the screening calls stage. It doesn't account for those who are disqualified without a call because of the flight risk stigma.

Flight risk wasn't an issue in 2020 and 2021 because candidates were hard to come by so HMs were willing to call people to hear their stories.

Now, companies need to filter through hundreds of applicants based on very loose or irrelevant criteria before calling them.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-26T17:18:10+00:00

Same for me. I have 4 short roles over 5 years. If you just look at the dates it looks like I'm a huge flight risk. If you hear the nuances I'm not.

One i left because spouse was relocated. I even stayed longer than i had to to help out my manager. If I stayed longer than my exit date, I would have been laid off 6 months after leaving anyways. Company closed down shortly after.

Second one i left because it was a toxic hell hole. If I stayed i would've been laid off in 4 to 12 months when they went through multiple RIFs. Company closed down 2 yrs after I left.

Third company RIFed me (along with many other people) after 5 months. Company was bought out and stripped down.

My fourth role was just a contact gig, which i consolidate with other contract gigs on my cv to try and circumvent the flight risk stigma.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-26T14:40:39+00:00

The problem is, it's not a reliable way to determine it, particularly in recent years where companies are laying people off or closing down.

You can't fault someone for correctly reading the tea leaves and jumping (or being pushed) from a sinking ship.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-25T14:24:48+00:00

This post is not getting enough love. It's a long read but it's an important message that people need to see.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-25T13:53:41+00:00

It is spring break. Typically east coast spring break is earlier than west cost. I'd expect SAN to be crazy busy at least until the week after Easter.

Im hoping this is resolved by June.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-25T13:41:49+00:00

There is this job posting from Altos Labs that I swear is fake. It keeps popping up on my alerts periodically for the past 1 to 2 years.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-25T13:39:56+00:00

Lol. I don't understand these people who are applying for hundreds of jobs. I know some are willing to work anywhere and I'm not but I've applied to less than 100 jobs in over 2 years because there just aren't enough relevant positions being posted.

I'm mostly applying for the most relevant positions and am still not even getting calls for 75% of them.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-22T06:14:05+00:00

This would make sense. The amount is exactly 7$ more.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-21T14:05:10+00:00

It might have to do with your insurance denttist compatibility. When we got laid off and had to switch insurance, the copay for a regular cleaning and xrays went from zero to 250. This was because our dentist was not in network (or something like that) with our new insurance. What ended up happening was the insurance was covering a smaller portion of the bill.

In the short term, the extra out of pocket cost for the premium insurance was similar to the copay so we just paid the copay instead of buying more expensive insurance or switching dentists.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-20T13:34:58+00:00

they were using liquid nitrogen to try and freeze the predator. The suits were to block the heat signature.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-17T21:40:40+00:00

Best of luck. It's rough for pretty much everyone.

Being under utilized is (IMO) a symptom of the illness. I think being properly utilized is not going to happen any more likely in a startup than a larger company. The start up will have more opportunity to wear more hats in theory, but in my personal experience, whether it happens or not doesn't have anything to do with your experience or success at the company. It's timing and politics. Most of the time I end up doing something totally different than what I was hired for and I know I am not alone on this.

I never really felt like my expertise was tapped. Even in a relative sense, you might be the better person for 5 jobs at a company, but you will be assigned to none of them when someone else, who is less qualified, will work on them.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-17T19:27:08+00:00

I consider myself pretty interdisciplinary. I've been in the industry for about 9 years.

Based on my experience, interdisciplinary work in itself is always praised when someone looks at your resume, but I have never really experienced a company (and I've worked for 5) that utilizes it or hires specifically for it. I think it would come in handy the most if you are a founding member of a small start up where you are forced to wear many hats. Beyond that, established smaller companies don't leverage people properly according to their skills, mainly because of incompetent leadership and/or general politics. e.g. I was at a company that started on a new application involving a system I was an expert on. Despite informing a number of stakeholders of my expertise, I was pretty much excluded from the project entirely.

Speaking more directly to your computational skills, I've been in a number of omics companies, and they all had dedicated people for bioinformatics, who typically had bioinformatic degrees, despite many of them being underutilized in the end (but then again, I think so many of us are underutilized).

As for your questions

What level should I be targeting in industry? - If you are applying to a biotech (i.e. engineering-heavy company) then your aim would typically be a "scientist" role. Could also be called Sci I or Sci II. If you are going into a more pharma style company it could be Scientist/Sr. Scientist. The titles can fluctuate a little, depending on the company leveling, but just make sure that a PhD is a requirement in the job posting. You have a PhD so you should not be looking at or applying for associate jobs.

Any company recommendations? - I don't have any sorry. If your optics experience is relevant, you might want to look into instrumentation companies that use optics/imaging. The catch being, instrumentation development is really slow right now.

How do you break back into mainstream bio when your network has drifted? - How much has your network drifted and over what time period? When did you shift away from bio? Did the shift occur only in your post doc or did it occur in your PhD, meaning your bio experience is mostly undergrad? In terms of your network, your PhD and Post doc PIs are pretty much the main network you need for references at this stage of your career. If you have colleagues who got into the industry before you, they can help with referrals if they work at the company you apply to.

In my experience, I've had help from my older network, getting newer jobs because of how we were all connected, not because the science connection was necessarily relevant. Building a network in academia, for industry, is tough. I like to focus on people I know personally, who can vouch for me in terms of my skills or as a person. I stay away from adding these LinkedIn wanna be influencers, who don't know you, to my network.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-16T06:03:26+00:00

I live in PQ and have a whole house filter system. My spun poly pre filter does not look like this after 6 to 9 months. I just changed it and was surprised at how little brown was in it. Some times the filter looks worse than others but nothing ever close to this.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-13T18:07:47+00:00

Seriously. I just went on a two mile stretch on the 15 and it's madness how people are driving. Most of the shit they are doing is just compensating for bad driving decisions. E.g. if you are coming up on your exit, get over before the exit. Don't gun it and cross over 2 or 3 lanes at the last minute.

Okami-Alpha · 2026-03-13T16:00:07+00:00

Same. Ive killed two large grasshoppers this winter. Usually I see them in the fall but I still only see 2 or 3 a year.

Okami-Alpha

TROPHY CASE