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Doesn't the fact that you don't even get a degree out of a postdoc make it worse? In some groups, being a postdoc means simply that you're software engineering for 0.25 of the pay that you would get as a software engineer in industry. You're hoping to get a chance to stick around as a researcher, but you're not doing actual research (hence no degree).

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no, you're doing research. I know some postdocs who practically don't do research, they manage labs or write software, but their names go on the papers that come out of the lab which is frequently good enough. and usually, the postdocs do research.

my advisor said that being a postdoc was the best time of their life (they has tenure) because their responsibilities were ~0, they had no one to manage / no one they was responsible for, but they also had effectively no superior or supervisor because the PI was busy managing the graduate students and expected that the postdocs see to themselves.

Yeah, I know mathematicians are often incredibly productive during their post-docs. Mind you, if you aren't its a kiss of death to your academic career.

I'm sure your advisor had an awesome experience, but there majority of postdocs don't get tenure-track positions and end up regretting doing a postdoc.

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