I applied online. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Goldfinch Bio (Cambridge, MA) in June 2021
Interview
Very engaging questions, but something is off. Super eager to hire to solve turnover issue. Informatics heavy but seemingly exciting niche work. Red flags especially with HR and recruitment team. Not clear how many computational scientists are really needed for the projects and what type of work is collaborative versus individual. How to get promoted seems to be unclear. Seems like people don’t stay long. The unlimited vacation seems to me a double edged sword that benefits the employer in an at will state. Sign on bonus or moving cost coverage available If you ask! Seems like collaboration across departments is not ideal.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How can output of an R program be displayed through a PHp script.?
Do you have experience in nonlinear dynamics and chaos? Do you have experience with stochastic systems? Have you done any machine learning? Any experience with nonlinear controls?
I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Goldfinch Bio (Cambridge, MA)
Interview
Meeting with hiring manager and team and HR. Weird vibe, doesn’t seem like a fun science place.
Regimented and staged to seem ok like they are a happy family but seems like turnover is causing space for new unaware, naive people to join this sinking ship.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Are you willing to work weekends?
Can you work independently with less direction?
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Goldfinch Bio (Cambridge, MA) in Mar 2019
Interview
Contacted by recruiter, then setup call with hiring manager who is not officially an IT person, but more a developer trying to handle IT. This setup has proven problematic in the past. Developers do not make good IT overlords; they think in terms of technical solutions only with no eye toward capacity planning, political problems associated with technical solutions, and overall user productivity. For instance, I've worked for developers who attempt to run IT departments. They usually underestimate the importance of user productivity when choosing desktop/laptop solutions, opt for more complicated technical solutions than users want to deal with, don't purchase or consider support/backup when implementing solutions, and provide little to no training for IT staff. Most of them are full-on technical and assume others are as well (bad assumption). I got the feeling right away that this position was not really an IT director position, but more a senior IT specialist role. Your job will be to agree with the "Head" of IT and bioinformatics when he presents his opinion on proposed solutions and act more as a right hand man rather than directing activities of the department. I got ghosted after the interview anyway so I assume they hired someone else. I wouldn't want the job if they offered it to me. About 75% of what they need can be farmed out to a consultant.