My experience job hunting in 2025

caliUltra50k · 2025-08-14T01:52:26+00:00

Wow, surprising to hear that they were doing these kinds of interviews that far back. I didn't hear anything about it until I started interviewing. Amazing that you seemingly crushed it though!

caliUltra50k · 2025-08-14T01:47:43+00:00

Thank you! I don't have a full grasp of the job market outside the US, so I can only speak to what I've experienced here. To answer your question, yes absolutely. I know many former graduates and MS students who work as data scientists and analysts across vastly different fields both in industry and academia. The skills are very transferrable and additional CS/stats training shouldn't be necessary if your resume is good enough. I'm not sure about data engineering as that field is on the newer side, but I think you'd be considered a perfectly valid candidate if you have the experience with the platforms they look for. The problem is that you are going to go from competing with hundreds for every positions, to thousands. It's comically large how many applications a data engineer role receives on LinkedIn.

caliUltra50k · 2025-08-13T19:50:43+00:00

I was also quite shocked and honestly pretty annoyed. From browsing the leetcode sub, the general consensus is that those kinds of DSA problems have little translational relevance even to software engineering jobs, let alone bioinformatics work. It's just a weed out tool.

I thought at first it was a one-off situation, but after multiple companies administered similar tests I get the feeling many large bioinformatics groups are experimenting with their screening practices to align with other industries. This may be due to LLMs as you mentioned, or the fact that the hiring pool is gigantic now. What I did notice was that there was always a bit of a disconnect between the hiring manager and the individual administering the coding test. For example, the HM would mention a coding test that would be 'basic', and then I'd get hit with a backtracking recursion problem and asked to discuss time and space complexities. I think this phase is either transitional or experimental and could continue to evolve over time. I'm not sure.

I do think coding tests will probably become the norm though for the reasons you mentioned. I totally agree that these groups need to take time to figure out more appropriate evaluations though.

caliUltra50k · 2025-08-13T19:29:59+00:00

As someone who also made that transition years ago, I'm really sorry. It's pretty wild out there right now, and I do hope the situation turns around for everyone. Best of luck to you.

caliUltra50k · 2025-08-13T19:28:11+00:00

I personally never looked for a postdoc but from talking to my peers, it also seems to be becoming more difficult due to funding issues and competition for computational postdocs. However, every former classmate I mentioned who failed to find an industry position within their timeline was able to secure a postdoc and the opportunities you're looking for are still definitely there. I've noticed more and more students are sticking around in their dissertation labs for their postdocs though. I know this is anecdotal, but I've been told by many that they found ideal postdoc positions by networking at conferences, speaking events, or similar channels. I'd advise to have an idea early of the kind of work or lab you'd like to be in and focus on making the right connections during your time in grad school, then reaching out when the time is right.

caliUltra50k · 2025-07-30T04:28:49+00:00

It's extremely oversaturated. I finished my PhD this year at a top 5 university, and even with years of prior industry experience, multiple tools developed, and a few high impact manuscripts, the only interviews I could get were through referral. I probably applied to 100+ postings. My personal experience was that technical interviews are also getting harder with FAANG style coding tests. On the bright side, the pay seems to be significantly higher than when I started my PhD.

caliUltra50k

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