Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Job posting: Medicinal chemist (Basel, Switzerland) and process chemist (Plymouth, MN)

From the inbox, a B.S./M.S./Ph.D. process development position at Cargill in Plymouth, MN:
This position is predominantly technical support and process development for transformer oil, polyols, glycerin, and regulatory issues, and a lesser amount of administrative responsibility, partial building management of the Industrial Specialties Technology Center and the ISTC’s safety program.

This position provides exposure to many corporate functions outside of R&D – e.g. operations, analytical, logistics, sales, regulatory, building trades, accounting, SAP.  This diversity keeps the job interesting and the opportunity to learn outside the technical field.
Needs 5 years of industrial experience, mostly in the process/production area, looks like.

I hate to admit it, but that sounds really, really interesting, even as the field is extraordinarily obscure. (Of course, transformer oil is probably much more important to the running of the modern world than anyone is aware.)

Also from the inbox, a Roche medicinal chemist project leader position in Basel:
...As a Lead Chemist (Project Leader in Medicinal Chemistry) you will be accountable for driving chemistry strategies in the project team and providing expert scientific input to ongoing and newly established drug discovery programs to deliver high quality candidates to our pipeline. 
You’re someone who strives to bring medicines to patients. You have significant professional experience (7-10 years) in the pharmaceutical or biotech industry with a proven track record as a Lead Chemist/Project Leader in the area of small molecule research preferably with experience in oncology research.
I find it interesting that there's no educational component mentioned -- seems to me that experienced M.S. chemists would probably be just as qualified, but I dunno what Roche's culture with respect to that might be. (ht "a friend."

Also, anyone interested in a very senior process engineering position in upstate New York
(M.S./Ph.D. chemical engineer, 10+ years in the industry)? If so, contact me and I'll put you in touch with the relevant recruiter. 

5 comments:

  1. Does 7-10 years of experience mean no one over 45 need apply for this Roche job even though they have a decade of experience successfully doing precisely this job?

    Guess Roche doesn't want to hire people that are too old (>45) or over qualified for this job, right?

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    1. You are correct. Age discrimination in Switzerland is codified and legal. Unless you happen to be a Swiss German, in the first place.

      Delete
  2. Speaking as someone who has some ties to this field, transformer oils are important and ubiquitous. There is a big challenge to try to create new oils that have good dielectric properties, good heat conductivity properties, resistance to performance degradation/reactivity with metals or other transformer components, fire safety properties, less hazardous to humans/ and environment if spilled. Meeting any few of these properties is easy, meeting them all is a Herculean task.

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    Replies
    1. Hey, anon -- thanks for adding your expertise/knowledge to this discussion!

      Delete
    2. And here I was about to make a Megatron joke.

      Delete

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20