Speaker 1: I’m here today with so from what I know you work at Schrodinger. What’s your position there exactly?

Speaker 2: So I am well you’ve not presented Schrodinger but I’ll tell you what my position is and then I’ll tell you a little more about Schrodinger if that’s fine with you. Okay so right now I am an application scientist. I should explain a little more what it is but I’m leading the US application science for Schrodinger and I’m also leading some scientific services for drug discovery.

Speaker 1: Okay so obviously not a lot of people might be familiar with this job so for just for anyone who might not be like familiar with this position as an application scientist could you just tell me like a few of the responsibilities that you have like as a part of your role?

Speaker 2: Sure first as I said let me give you a little more background in the company that’s going to give you some context on what we do right so Schrodinger is a sort of hybrid between a tech company and a biotech. A tech company is what it started with which is a spina from Columbia University that has developed first quantum mechanics software for simulation and later on moved into computational chemistry the sort of simulation people use in different fields especially drug discovery to accelerate drug discovery. So it’s a software company, scientific software and more recently in the past ten years the company has evolved towards being a biotech and starting drug discovery project of its own right. Application scientist is the group that stands right at the interface between the new technological developments made by the company meaning the the scientific software and Schrodinger is at the cutting edge of that but again it sounds like maybe a little more marketing I let you do your research.

So application scientists stand at the interface between these technologies and its usage in active drug discovery project by scientists across the industry meaning pharma company biotechs and startups right now most of these companies out there that do drug discovery use Schrodinger software.

Speaker 1: Okay that’s very impressive so what do you job involves an ample variety of problems to tackle in the sense that you aren’t always particularly focused on on one specific subject?

Speaker 2: Very much there is one job that that means diversity I think it could be in the realm of science I’d say I think you could you could say that this is application science at least at Schrodinger I have to say that application scientists mean different things in different companies so what’s the role of an application scientist I at a high level I said they were the interface between technology and their users what it means is that they are in charge of doing two main things first educate the users out there about the scientific software about the technology tell them that it exists give them updates about it and more and that’s before they actually acquire the software and once they have the software they show them how to use it with the maximum impact meaning in the right case use cases and with the right I would say scientific approach this is really a software that needs to be used as a scientific tool so which we we we you know we adapt whatever scientific problem the customers might have and the customers I said they can be in different industries but they can also be in different fields you have biologists who biologists who wants to solve some you know mechanistic problems for one protein of interest let’s say but then you have you know a medicinal chemist that wants to improve small molecules that with the goal of making it a drug or you can have you know a junior you know more junior scientist who is more interested in structural biology so in terms of of scientific spectrum we have to handle a lot but but so that just one aspect on the other side we have to gather the the the usage experience and well feedback direct feedback and experience from the from the customers or the users of the software and bringing into the company make it our own experience bring it to the project to product managers or the other developers so that we improve the software or we create new functionalities to to to maximize the use the usage these are these are you know the the this is the two-way street if you will that that application scientists are right in the middle but then you have many others you have you know the collaboration with the business development people the sales people the sales people you have different type of company Schweninger makes a point of not sending the software if it’s not going to be useful to to to the to the the customers so we are usually in the forefront speaking with the user understanding their problem and and and assessing if and how the software can be used right so we do interact a lot with the sales people they tell us about you know what the customer is what the background is and we come in the first scientific discussion trying to make an idea of what they do in terms of science so you see that that really requires a lot of adaptability from the the the application scientists that requires to be able to think on your on your on your feet and that also requires to be an experience and good scientist and and and that is the last aspect I’d like to emphasize about application scientists they do apply science meaning they continue to grow as scientists everything I said was about you know the existing technology education communication a lot of things with a lot of scientific background but you cannot do that efficiently if you are not an active scientist on active project so all application scientists at least in this company are involved in many different projects they can be the services that I lead meaning you know small scope for money but in active drug discovery project or they they are involved in this with the scientific development team in in the development of the software of the next technology and then they publish and these kind of things so you you you will see every application scientist in our group in my group regularly publishing on being on patent and things like that we need that to keep going so I I hope that gives you a novel view of what we do

Speaker 1: yeah yeah um that was very informative um so you mentioned that um your group so I assume that you work in a team um is that the case

Speaker 2: very much so my my role so I’m a manager now so it’s slightly different but but I’ve been I’ve been going through all the steps and one thing that I tell to my team very early on is one of your most important assets and and way to succeed in the company is your your your peers your teammates for the simple reason that the scope of the science you’re supposed to be to be involved with and interacting with is so broad that there is no chance anyone is an expert in everything right so you know that you’re going to be involved in discussions that are going to be completely out of your what not completely but pretty much out of your scope for me for example if I’m in quantum mechanics I’m out of my depth right but then I bring on the quantum mechanics experts right and and we and we have this dance with people either bring them on the call and and they handle them the the problem or we decide that this is something we want to learn and we decide to put in the time and we just learn from that person and are the intermediate but you see how how this goes so this is one the second very important thing I talked about the relationship with the sales team there is really a tight connection when we do business development the we don’t we’re not salespeople but we we are we need to understand but we’re exposed let’s say to the business side of the of the the activity at Trillinger very much we we have what we call you know strategic approaches to to to develop the business meaning we try to understand what really are the the scientific needs of customers and how we can satisfy them and what’s the best route etc this is a tight and in tight connection with the business development people and we work also with the scientific development team so really are at the center of a hub if you will teamwork is is central to what we do

Speaker 1: okay um so from what I’m able to gather you talked about obviously you’re a manager so um you’re communicating with a lot of people um but from what I’m getting um as an application scientist you’re going to be working with people within your group and your discipline but also there’s going to be a lot of interaction with people outside in different like sectors of the company um you mentioned sales and things like that

Speaker 2: and scientific development and um and and the therapeutic group also we have the group that does the discovery we want to gather as much experience as we can from old sites absolutely this is I would say this is one of the aspects that you know a young scientist coming out of of of grad studies right a young phd or someone who’s done a short postdoc they have ahead of them quite a few opportunities but but the two main let’s say yeah the two two well three main opportunities are in our field either they do project support they you know they support drug discovery in pharma or biotech and day to day they just they just you know help the cycle and we can talk about that if you’re interested or and and that that you know that has uh that is more focused or they they can decide to work more on the science development you know and be a developer or they want something more diverse more interactive more exposed to other things like business like and they do application science okay um

Speaker 1: very very very understandable um I mean um what do you say that at your job now this is this is maybe beyond the the actual like work of it but do you say that you have flexibility in terms of maybe you know time when you work location where you work and you know your your pace do you have some sort of control over

Speaker 2: that to an extent to an extent and let me tell you I can make a few comparisons there because I’ve done a couple of other jobs before um in terms of time you know we do have some constraints absolutely we are interacting a lot with collaborators customers so my personal agenda and the agenda of many people in the group has a lot of meetings in it those meetings when they’re in your calendar you know you you can always move one but but that’s not flexible right you need to show up you need to do your meetings you need to be ready for that meeting um around that meeting though um you know like in many other company you you need to show your your your face to an extent I mean you cannot be completely but I I have people who are shifted in different parts of the day depending on on personalities and also phases of life right I’m going to give you a few examples um you have people who wake up early and like to start early and finish early fine with me as long as the the meetings are met and the meetings are are satisfied and the job is done but then you have people who have you know families and need to and they need to have a big break during lunchtime or a big break during I have zero requirements around that and I’ve been free all my all my all my professional career um the only constraint is the job is done and you show up at meetings but since meetings are you know quite numerous that that can be a limitation in terms of location uh we have a hybrid um hybrid system at Schrodinger we have to be at the office on well it’s always been the case by the way even before covid but two or three days a week Monday and Friday they’ve always been you know work from where you want from home if you’d like and um Tuesday Wednesday right now or Thursday before you need to go at the office the reason for that is really that this is a company that tries to stay innovative and you have a lot of projects that just you know sparkle out of a of a coffee or around the coffee machine you start chatting with someone and something happens and we have many collaborations that started this way so we want people to bump into each other serendipity serendipity there is a syllabus missing here but but randomly let’s say um which is not happening if you work remotely you only speak because you have a meeting and the meeting is done nothing else is done nothing else can be done in this interaction so yeah so some flexibility not everything maybe a last thing about flexibility it’s about the type of work we do right um and and that that might have to be so okay again because of the breadth of activity of an application scientist there are so many areas where if you gain expertise it’s going to be valuable for the company so you have a choice there you can decide that you want to grow on a specific subject matter that you know that’s that you want to learn fine as I don’t guess you know there is a value for the company you’re going to be supported to do that you can decide to do also I have I’ve seen people not in my group but in other groups who wanted to move towards business right and they started to do more and more business interactions and then slowly they they went to business that’s something very possible too um but all that being said again there is one constraint um it’s it’s very different from academia for example oh by the way for the flexibility of time I want to talk about academia academia it would be very different you have much less meetings all that matters is the end product and if the end product is there you could have done it at night I mean no one controls your week I think the meetings are really pacing your week that’s the same thing for the topic um you know you still you know there is a core function the core function is that you we have a number of people who want to use the software we have customers we need to speak with them and we need to work with them so that they are successful using our software and and um and and the way we do that can be sort of flexible but that’s still a constraint right we have a very clear rule

Speaker 1: okay um thank you um so something that I’m I’m curious about so you mentioned um a lot about like people um like people being interested in business and then slowly shifting towards there people growing in in some way um this this might be company dependent but do you feel like your job offers opportunities to either grow in seniority which would be like inside the company or grow personally in like skills um some that would allow you to almost create your own startup and begin entrepreneurship

Speaker 2: okay so there are several questions there let me address them one by one can you grow technically and scientifically within the group can you acquire more skills yes that’s the best job in the world to acquire more skills you gain in breath from field to field meaning again I’m going to say it again from quantum chemistry to molecular mechanics or bioinformatics or you know you name it structural biology you will be exposed to all that you will have opportunities to learn all these directions and at the same time you can actually gain in depth too in one or several of these areas the limit is basically your ability to do it right your energy and your time the time you can put it so this type of role is fantastic for that at Schrodinger the way I know it meaning maybe it’s the same in other companies but I also know about other companies where application scientists have a different there’s a different flavor there and they have much more restrained roles right so so that’s the first thing um this is different from the career path can you can you actually have a full career where you know your title increase your responsibility increase and and your I have to say in all honesty Schrodinger has transitioned in the period I’ve been at Schrodinger from a from a small small tech company that had not made it quite just yet to a mid-side company that has established itself very seriously when it was smaller the function needed to be met and and there were limited opportunity for a car there wasn’t a career path but in the past you know and again I think this is important for people who might you know listen or read this this uh this discussion that they understand that this has sometimes less to do with the role itself than with the company and sometimes it’s not a choice from the company just at which stage the company is at right early stage very early stage company they just need to make it so on on the one hand you don’t have a well-defined career path which is which says the next step is senior studies two and three and then your principal studies on the other hand in these early stage companies you have many opportunities to expand your responsibilities and your and your uh um you know and and and get your hands dirty on things way beyond your your initial role right so it’s not well um well shaped it’s not well formalized but you have the opportunity so I’ve seen that and initially this is what attracted me to Schrodinger uh it’s that I really have the feeling that you know I could play around right I if I if I wanted to put extra time in I could get chance to be on an exciting uh you know try a new technology or I could just set up a collaboration with with someone or I could I could use my my business skills that I acquired in other companies before and be more exposed to business so I really enjoyed that very much I wasn’t setting my tracks which is very much the larger the company the more setting your tracks you are but also the more the the better define all the steps now we you know fast forward nine years I’ve been a trainer for nine years um we had a career path in in application studies you start as senior scientist one you get to senior studies two then you get the principal scientist one you get the principal studies two senior principal studies and then if you really make it you can go to director senior director and this kind of things so you you can stay all your life as an application scientist have a great scientific career and just stay there um does that answer the

Speaker 1: question yeah um very well um so there’s there’s growth opportunities both as a person um but that’s that’s gonna depend on um on the determination and the the will of the person and then um from what I’m getting it’s the going up the ranks in a in a company is just gonna depend on what stage the company is at um and its lifetime

Speaker 2: yeah pretty much pretty much and another thing to take into consideration if I may right um you said career path it’s career path in the same room the same company now you might not want to do that right the the notion of career as we used to have it 20 years ago I was it’s before my time but you know one company one one road and you stay there it’s not like that anymore the question the underlying question from which you study is is this a good role to acquire skills that can lead me somewhere else right yes and I answered very clearly yes absolutely scientifically but also in terms of soft skills your customer exposed you have a lot of business relationship for entrepreneurship now the question that has not been asked is what else? What can application sense role lead you to? I mentioned business development but I’ve seen many people going into other things. Marketing is one very odd but you know again you have a good sense of customer facing roles you can have this kind of sense but then you have also scientific roles like project support like going into a pharma company for example many of former application scientists do that and sometimes come back after that right. We also have people who have gone to other companies and have you know younger companies smaller structure because they wanted to have a sort of entrepreneur feeling you can do that too. So it’s a role that can lead to many many places.

Speaker 1: Okay so now just to transition this was very high level. What I’m gonna ask next is what does your day-to-day life look like at your job?

Speaker 2: That’s a very good question so I don’t think I will describe my day-to-day life because again I’m more advanced in my career than the people who might be interested in this interview but I can take two cases entry level and a few years later right entry level it’s super diverse both of them are going to be doing from now or to the next very different things. So well right so the Virginia people they so I should precise that we recruit on the after a PhD and most of the time like a short post doc or short experience in the industry that’s much better right. So these are already pretty senior people by many standards but yet there is a rampant phase where people need to learn more about the science so at first they are exposed to you know to they can be talking to people interested in the software but have no idea of what it is we call that perspective calls right. They just want to hear about the software they make a presentation and then presentation of what the software is I call that a software it’s a full suite of full platform yeah yeah hundreds of tools there and then there is a discussion going on and then we try to refine the to make the discussion converge towards potential usage of the platform to solve the customers. In order to do that you need to prepare it so you also have some you know creation of slide deck etc then after a while you need to well you might be on a project maybe on a service which will be led by a project manager and then you you just need to do the science right you need to apply to use the software yourself after that you might have an internal call with internal meaning within the company with a project manager a product manager of you know a docking tool that’s pretty advanced and that a customer had a question for right the discussed with the customer I came up with a question you didn’t know the answer you have a chat with the scientific development person and the person can show that to you the next day you could actually travel to see the customer and have these food day there where you make a presentation you have one-on-one where the person show you what does or she does and then and then you know maybe you’ve traveled shoot something with the person you can also you can also have discussion with the business team and try to think about what’s the best thing to present to prepare for this customer that’s for early stage lot of focus on learning about the technology later stage when you’re you have a few years under your belt then you start to have a pretty strong network of people you know in the industry and they reach out to you as an expert for the software but more importantly for the field the software is the software is is one of the advanced software forward called computational chemistry so people who I want to make that clear who have questions for us these are usually not exactly how to best use the software it’s not which flag should I use which button should I press that’s part of it but it’s more okay the scientific problem is the software is what’s the best approach to solve that with the computational approach so our scientific discussion right so after a few years you start to have some network and people trust you and you have more of a consultancy role and you use this influence to orient people in the right direction you can also become a project manager for the services I was talking about our collaboration that you you you set up so you know for people who are in science you have the typical you know research project maybe and then maybe publication or things like that and some others are for fee we’re also good conferences we have a normal you know scientific life let’s say yeah and that’s pretty much it with all the interactions again meeting with scientific development meeting with the other app sites because you need to talk to whoever whom ever has the expertise talk speaking with the business the business people because every interaction you have has business implication that’s pretty much it

Speaker 1: okay um so like you talked about this this used to be a lot of variety of activities you know associated with you already talked about how there were like a lot of responsibilities it’s pretty clear that a lot of responsibilities goes with a lot of different things to do on a day-to-day basis so my next question would be there this with all these things to do does this might also be company dependent but does your job offer a good work-life balance

Speaker 2: it can it depends on okay again I’ve known different periods in a trigger right but you have some traveling and that’s that’s a cost in itself that’s something you have to recognize you have meetings nothing that stuff but this is and we are a company that’s very active right now if you go for a biotech that’s trying to trying to make it you can expect that you’re going to have pixel activities that you would need to absorb but all that said the culture of the company is very very amenable to to keep a good work-life balance and that’s something I would encourage very strongly you know I’m sure most people we know that but but but but people to discuss about with whomever you can talk to in companies you are prospecting in what is the culture of the company I give you a few examples that are telling you a little more about that what’s the status of the company on weekend in weekend communication or late night communication I will I used to work for a company where that was expected that you would answer emails and answer your text on weekends and late night late night a Schweninger this is this is not well perceived when you do that you have to not do that as a manager I sometimes I work on I do work on weekend but I try not to send my emails on weekend I wait for the Monday to that’s that’s my personal flexibility that I use so that’s an important factor that that’s keeping you a little safe and then I should also mention something else right you have part of the structure companies that either they can well either that’s fully expected and you cannot opt out of these extra hours or this is something that you can decide to do because you want to push and you want to get ahead if I can say that but you could also not do and a Schweninger I’ve you have the flexibility to do it even though you know I like the vibrant environment and that’s a that’s a feeling meaning that you what that means basically is that you are surrounded by people who want to move and move fast they have a sense of urgency and I like that and I want to stay in a team like that I hire people this way because you know you have a certain people who function very well in this kind of environment but you you know you also have people who just want to put clear limits to where they start and where they stop and that’s fine for us too so you just have to know in which company which type of company you have you are are you in an upper-out type of company meaning either you keep going and pushing hard or the company is not interested anymore are you in the other end of the spectrum you know it’s a 9 to 9 to 5 job and no one is really actually doing extra hours and you know it’s not gonna lead you anywhere or are you somewhere in between I think that that might be might be more bigger structures but but I don’t have so many insights into that

Speaker 1: okay so now I’m gonna shift a bit more into something that might be feasible for the people listening so would it be possible for you to describe to me and obviously in a sort of simplified way the path for a student in high school to get to a position like the one who are now maybe maybe not as a manager but at least as an application scientist

Speaker 2: yeah I know that that’s a very very good question so I want to repeat right you have many application scientists wrote out there and they mean different things in different companies so I’m going to start with the generic thing that I know more or less in our field which is again computational chemistry molecular modeling computational biophysics these kind of things and then I’ll talk a little more specifically about Schrellinger trying to emphasize the role of culture and and maturity of the company in this kind of choice so that people have some keys to to to you know decode all that so an application scientist is most of the time subject matter expert it’s before anything it’s I don’t think this is a job you can learn from you know from scratch if you don’t have the theoretical basis so most of the time PhD is required at Schrellinger in my group it’s absolutely required you know the company sometimes maybe not maybe a master plus some additional experience might be enough depending on the on the job market we might actually get I’ve had university professor applying for the job just wanted to shift outside of academia and they wanted to stay in contact with people so we can get you know you know very very very expert people so that means that a high school student needs to choose a field of interest and learn the fundamental of this field and grow as a scientist in this field right once you do that opportunities are you know you’re going to have a few a few alternatives as a scientist one of them is academic research or academic science and that has you know I’ve stayed in academia for a long time and that has a lot of pros and cons but but it’s it’s really you know it’s it’s very different right we can talk about that another time then you can have just applying the science for as I said project support in companies being hired for day-in day-out doing drug discovery and that can be an exciting exercise I mean the satisfaction of having a drug out there that is that you participated to the intellectual discovery is very satisfying very but the day-to-day job in a sense is less diverse or you can decide that you aim you go into the well the first verification is industry academia right and we can talk about that in industry you can be doing project support or discovery or you can you have other jobs like well like scientific development or application scientists so yeah PhD and and the choice needs to be you don’t want to continue doing academic research you want to go into the industry with everything that entails and in the industry you decide that you’re not going to do project support but you you are interested in the diversity of the role you have very strong interpersonal skills you need to like communicating with people you need to want to interact you need to be rewarded by helping people out if you’re if you’re more rewarded or if you’re not rewarded by helping people out this absolutely not for you or if you but if you’re rewarded by achieving something for yourself and that’s it you could be satisfied to an extent in application science because your science continue but you seem to be rewarded with the other thing so yeah that’s a high level view you can be an application scientist today by going into physics into chemistry into into material science so that would be physics for for the most part I suspect you could you have you know you have software and engineering’s all things like that other fields I won’t be able to help you so much yeah

Speaker 1: so there’s multiple ways to get into it but there’s there’s certain things that you have to

Speaker 2: you have to go through you have to be a subject matter expert quote-unquote and have a PhD I think this is what you yeah

Speaker 1: I mean just just as a just for people to know did you have personally a mentor in high school or when you were trying to make it

Speaker 2: not so much and I think that was a mistake of me I personally well I mean it was a little while ago so I think it was not as easy as it is today to get in touch with people with LinkedIn and so not personally not so much I had teachers that were you know I developed a good relationship with and where and you know we’re very willing to help and tell me things and I didn’t realize at the time it was not a formalized mentorship relationship but a mentor-mentee relationship but I did get insights from my teachers at times right I remember my teacher and I was mentored by my PhD advisor and my PI during my postdocs these were people who have been very formative to me but I regret today to not have looked for people outside of well it’s additional people you you you you can have several mentors at the same time and they can teach you or they can they can help you to grow in different fronts at the same time or in parallel and you can keep this this mentor-mentee relationship for a long time and it’s going to mature grow and you know bring you a lot of things so I you know that that’s what it was I can maybe add something to that which is that I am regularly I didn’t have so many mentors beyond the one I may have decided but I have a number of mentees today people who are part of the reason why I’m application scientist that I like helping people out I like teaching and I’m doing these things and people reach out to me sometimes you know because we bump into each other in events but what I want to stress out is that some people do a cold outreach to me on LinkedIn and explain their case and as you know if I feel that if they’ve selected me well right I feel I have some something to tell them I try to speak with them every time I can right so don’t hesitate to do that

Speaker 1: okay yeah I feel like it’s it’s important for people to understand that they can reach out to others because sorry a lot of people will be willing to help them with things like that

Speaker 2: absolutely I you know yeah people won’t help and I think that someone who is today trying to be exposed to many things understand you know the field market and makes effort to reach out to people in that field will have good chances to get the insights they want this is pretty much what you’re doing exactly which is which is

Speaker 1: fantastic thank you so to just wrap up on you’ve given a lot of advice already but this is just a question more in general are there any pieces of advice that you’d give to anyone right now knowing everything that you know

Speaker 2: wow that’s that’s broad but but I have to say it’s gonna be it’s gonna sound so cliche right but I think this is this is this is where it starts right find something you you like find something that spark sparkles your interest and go for it you don’t know how long you know how far I have never had a plan for my career everything has been done opportunistically I knew I was excited by science I like understanding things and I was you know I was good at that that that was my global direction and the hardest period for me I’ve been when I tried to box or to have a business plan for myself these were the worst period because I couldn’t make it in the best areas have been when I went with the flow but keeping the trying to keep my global direction well adjusted let’s say and and once you’re somewhere just go out there put yourself out there go to meetings meetups you know network with people but you know just go out there present whenever you can if that’s possible as a scientist I would say have a poster or go to conferences and and good things will come to you we’re living an exciting time for scientists I have to say a lot of technologies are on the brink of explosion of you know creating so much so much changes in everybody’s life of course people are thinking of AI but but there are many other things there is there is you know the old genomics approach or energy for scientists today it’s it’s an incredible play field so if you’re if you’re interested in that go with it acquire the skills and you’re opening yourself live of opportunities that’s pretty much my feeling now if you’re not afraid of working and you know the limits gonna be what you’re winning and how much you’re willing to and enable to work and how much energy you have

Speaker 1: well I feel like that’s a perfect place to end off thank you very much for participating in and giving your input and I think that’s that’s where we’re gonna leave it so thank you thank

Speaker 2: you very much to you and keep doing what you’re doing I think it’s a great initiative thank you