Help! In Desperate Need of Career Advice

Background: In Dec 2021 I graduated with a B.S. in Genetics (Minor Women’s Studies) and in 2022 i started my PhD program. After the UC strike and some pretty awful rotations, I was able to find a lab. After talking with my PI, considering my mental health, and weighting career options, I decided to drop to a Masters. I’ve been eligible to graduate since Fall 2024 (thesis written and signed but hasn’t been submitted), and my PI has kept me on as a GSR (graduate student researcher) so that I have an income until I find a job. My M.S. is in Integrative Genetics and Genomics. My undergrad research was focused on plant and microbial genetics and my current research is in bacterial genetics/genomics. I have a lot of experience with R, html, and some css. I developed a web app to visualize the biogeography and host range of the pathogen my lab studies, and I’ve worked with a lot of NGS data (Illumina and Nanopore).

My problem: I don’t know where to look for jobs or how to find something suitable for my skills. I think I’d really thrive in an environment like consulting or a manager/coordinator position, but I don’t know how to break into that field, or even find a job that I’m qualified for currently. To put it simply, I love getting shit done. I love helping people figure things out and finding solutions, but I don’t want to do the labor of carrying out those solutions from start to finish. I don’t want to work at the bench and carry out other peoples research. I don’t mind working remotely and doing bioinformatics work (that’s what i’m currently doing).

In my lab, I’m the person everyone comes to when they have questions, can’t figure something out, or don’t know where to start. Sometimes my coworkers come to me with the most simple and mundane things and other times it’s more complex, but either way I just…figure it out for them. Sometimes I feel a little frustrated because i’m like damn you could have just googled that - like all of the skills i’ve developed have been from me wanting to figure things out and teaching myself how to do it. I just research and read and teach myself.

Anyway, all that to say, I am very motivated and I love learning new skills, especially when it’s to solve a problem that others can’t seem to figure out or don’t know where to start, but I’m feeling so incredibly lost in how to put that to use in a real job/career. I want to be useful, but it feels like all the jobs I’m seeing I’m either under or over qualified, or it’s just bench work.

Where do I go from here? How do I start?