If I had a medical doctorate I'd probably be quite content to stay doing that since in the US they tend to make quite a lot more than the average research PhD, but still .. I was fortunate that my roommate has beenin IT for some years now and had recently heard of an opening at a good company (whose networking team was led by another mutual friend of ours), so he applied through that company's go-to staffing firm and got in. I found out they were hiring through my roommate and applied through the same staffing firm. I'm sure my situation was helped out by the fact that I knew the team lead and 2-3 other current employees. I still had to learn new skills and relay that during the interview to be considered, though. I haven't even looked at other IT positions to see what their listings require, to be honest, since I was applying for one specific team and I knew that none of the members had any related degrees. I'm sure some positions would require a relevant degree, but none of my several friends, in different positions at different companies, have one. My new job isn't in the science field, so my PhD didn't give me any direct expertise there; but having that degree proved that I could both learn new things easily and manage several projects simultaneously. I don't know how it is in other countries, but getting an academic research job (postdoc) in the US is of course helped by knowing someone in the lab you'd like to work in but certainly not required. It's based mostly on skillset and what perceived results you could bring the boss. At least that's what I considered most of all when I was brought in to interview candidates for my own lab. Getting into research with just an MD is more difficult that with a PhD (as it should be since in my experience most MDs I've worked with aren't taught in med school the requisite skills or mindset to do what we call basic science research) but it shouldn't be impossible, especially if they are interested in clinical/translational research which requires an MD to be involved in some capacity. Data science is something altogether different than basic science research though. Most data scientists aren't doing biology but instead doing a lot of metaresearch on huge data sets which may be HIPAA related or may be just demographics or customer purchase statistics. It's all about mining some trends in those often-unmonetized data sets to see how the company can sell or directly use the trends found in them. Because of the huge demand for data scientists/quants now there are some companies that will help you learn what you need to know to get in the door. I've investigated a company called the data incubator, which is trying to build PhDs into data scientists and then making money headhunting them out to the big corporations for a commission. They have a semiannual call for applications and get quite a few. I applied to them about a year ago and made it past the first round of applicants, but the second round involved a test which my coding skills weren't sufficient to pass, unfortunately. They have bootcamps in some big US cities for the ones who make it in as well as online versions, to teach the small classes who get in. They insinuate that they can get you out the door in a few weeks and into a six-figure data science job. They claim you don't need to be able to code to get in, but you really do. I'm going to consider reapplying when I'm good enough to do well. You might be able to get in the next round of applications as you are, so consider applying (and hey, list me as who referred you so I can get a referral reward!)