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Comment by arcanus | Hacker News Reader

^ This

After my PhD I received a very nice industry position where I can do more research than my friends who are professors. I don't have to sit in committees or teach: I'm employed to conduct research. I'm also fairly compensated, versus the slave wages I was paid in graduate school.

I am flying back from ICML in Stockholm, so it's hard to argue my company doesn't support my academic interests.

I like Simon but he's off-base here. And I don't even work for FAANG/Deepmind, where I suspect I'd have considerably more substantial resources. Industry is by no means perfect but it's a great landing spot post-PhD.

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Do you consider yourself lucky or it's a normal career path for all PhDs?

Perhaps a better question ... how long is your situation going to last? Academia offers stability to an extent .. say post tenure. Industry does not imho.

Both this comment and the parent are fair points.

I don't believe my situation is rare: this position was considerably easier to attain than a faculty position.

Stability is better and worse. It is better in terms of resources (I don't have to apply for grants, I can get summer students, and not for grad student descent! ) but it certainly has less job security than tenure.

Statistically, most PhDs will work in industry because academia is a pyramid. Do PhDs get higher paid jobs in industry than academia? Unsure.

Entry postdoc salaries in the UK are on par with industry outside London (£30-40k). Over time industry will probably pay more, but professors earn £60k minimum so they're hardly underpaid.

Being a postdoc is something of a sweet spot. You get paid enough (finally) to enjoy life a bit, you have immense working flexiblity and you aren't lumbered (yet) with the bureaucracy of the university system. The only way to advance is usually to take on teaching loads and more admin.

But.. postdocs are almost always contractual, lasting 1-3 years. This has benefits: most people do a couple of postdocs before getting tenure and it allows you to move around the world if you like. Academia is only permanent if you get tenure, and even then it's still dependent on your research output and teaching performance. If you got a job in a grad scheme, you'd have a more stable job after finishing your PhD.

Getting tenure is hard. This is absolutely not the normal route for PhDs, as much as they think it is. There are far fewer permanent positions than there are postdocs, so it's not uncommon for people to move abroad just to get a stable job.

Unrelated slightly, and I'm not European, but do postdocs/professors really make less than SE1s at FAANG in the UK?

I'm from the UK and professors aren't paid huge amounts, but remember that salaries are lower here than in the USA even in tech/software.

60k is a senior software engineer salary (especially outside of London)

Speaking from experience as a postdoc, we earn less for sure, but from what I can see a postdoc in the US earns about the same. In the rest of Europe things are a bit different. At the extreme end, in Zurich you might earn 100k CHF as a postdoc if you're lucky (but you pay 30EUR for a pizza). Even at really top-tier places like TUM, you're going to be on 35-40k EUR.

A typical professorial scale in the UK (most universities publish this information publicly) ranges from £60-120k.

You have to realise two things. First, that FAANG are crazy outliers. Second, that UK universities are publicly funded and with few exceptions, justifying six figure salaries from the taxpayer is difficult. A lot of professors make good money on the side by doing consulting.

I believe this is different in the US, as a lot of universities (like Stanford) have huge private endowments. I'm not sure how it works at places like Oxford where the university owns half the centre of town.

A senior engineer in London or a tech hub like Cambridge might make six figures, but that's after several years probably. For engineers, there are much higher salaries to be found elsewhere in Europe in places like Munich.

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