Career Switch from Physical Science/Pharma?

Hi friends,

I’m at a bit of a crossroads in my career and wanted to get some perspective if my thoughts/plan was even worth considering. I’m an Organic Chem PhD with a solid number of first author publications in computational/medicinal chemistry and a background in your classic science programming Python libraries. Went into pharma right after grad school and am currently director-level with a track record of virtual screening and getting drugs into the clinic.

Always loved tech and heavily considered CS in undergrad before going a different direction and still working some computational stuff into my career. I’ve been thinking about going more towards AI/ML research, probably with a life science slant at first as that is my background. I was putting together a 6-12 month plan to get “up to speed” as it were to try and be an informed, though likely not super competitive, candidate — but it would be heavily self-taught. I’m sure these jobs are super hot, so is this even worth considering?

Thanks!