[Urbanium]

How does one who holds a BSc/MSc degree in chemical engineering and wants to work as maintenance and repair expert (i.e. those people you call to fix your NMR or other instrument when it breaks) for various instruments (Bruker, Mettler, Merck, Agilent, JEOL e.g.) get the necessary education and licence for that?

Is that provided by special institutions or course organizers or the producer itself? I wasn't able to find any ads for such positions for complete novices, and that's kinda confusing.

[Hunter2]

I think you need a degree as mechanical and or electrical engineer. I would ask the manufacturer of these devices and asks for vacancy jobs and education possibilities.

[kriggy]

Shimadzu has a job advert at my school for job that looks at first glance like this one. I dont remember the exact requirments but as far as I recall, its degree in chemistry (preffered in analytical), experience with instruments (ie. you know some instrumentations: know how to change column etc..), knowledge of english and driving licence. I think they will make some training as you join. The best you can is to ask them directly

[Enthalpy]

And how much do Shimadzu offer for such jobs, and what qualification do they expect? In electronics, an MSc would be too expensive for maintenance - and not necessarily adequate the hands-on formation.

[jjwinkle]

Is that provided by special institutions or course organizers or the producer itself? I wasn't able to find any ads for such positions for complete novices, and that's kinda confusing.

It will come as a surprise to me if this isn't just another "frontier" thing - that is there is no organized structure in our civilization (yet) providing deliberate education for such a basic profession. Civilization is a work in progress. This is an area that needs improvement.

[Furanone]

The person who built our light scattering detectors (dynamic & static) was from the physics department, and I think she just learned these skills based on her getting in with a professor whose area of research was this, she completed her PhD with him learning all these skills then, and when she come to our department she brought them along.

Also, I have worked on several GC-FID, GC-MS, HPLC systems and you learn a lot of the maintenance and repair out of necessity. Being a scientist is being a problem solver. Of course, reading a lot helps (such as the operation manual as well as analytical chem texts and watching webinars on the topic. For GC & HPLC, the Separation Science newsletter (http://www.sepscience.com/Techniques/GC) is very good, and another forum specifically on chromatography is also very helpful for learning from many of the experts (http://www.chromforum.org/).