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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

> But then what was the point of the postdoc?

To continue to develop as a researcher and build up your research skills, publication portfolio, and network, ready to move into industry.

If you do an ok PhD you could spend a couple of years as a postdoc refining that research and building on your foundation to really making a name for yourself and then apply to industry at your peak into a senior position.

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It varies by field, but in my experience companies value experience in academia at about 1/2 the rate of experience in industry. So someone who spent five years in grad school getting a PhD and then spent another three years as a postdoc might be considered the equivalent of someone with four years of experience in industry. If you are going to leave academia anyway it is much more efficient to do it as soon as possible.

It does depend on the role though. If the company is hiring someone who is a world expert in your specific research subject it makes sense to have stayed to become the world expert. But I think that's unusual. Much more commonly people leave academia and go into more generic "data science" type roles in which case extra postdoc years don't really help you.

Of course if you enjoy the research and don't mind the opportunity cost then there's nothing wrong with staying.

Really insightful comment, I completely agree. It also has to do with the resources available in industry that increases the time value. You can get so much more done in industry because you have larger budgets and tighter timelines. The beauty of academia is it allows you time to ponder. So yes, it's less efficient but you typically find serendipity on the long way home compared to taking highway.

This is not a great idea, unless you’re sure the specific expertise you are building will get you a job.

In tech, we typically hire PhDs and postdocs in at the same level. Sure, you’ll probably advance a little faster with experience from a postdoc, but not faster than if you started straight out of your PhD.

Postdocs are preparation for academic research in a specific field. Most industry jobs don’t work like that, and most PhDs don’t end up working in the subfield of their PhD, either.

Don’t mislead yourself into thinking that a postdoc is a good default option for a PhD graduate. Way too many people do postdocs, and end up looking a little foolish when they look for industry jobs later.

Into a senior position straight from university? That's going to be interesting.

That's pretty normal for hiring PhDs in my practical experience. My first job was 'senior' and it's the same for everyone else I can think of. You are senior - you've been part of the community for around four years by that point and by graduation you're probably part of several committees and starting to mentor others. Why isn't that 'senior'?

Not the case in my field - biomedical. The hiring manager at a large pharmaceutical company told an audience of postdocs & graduate students at a career event a few weeks ago that they prefer to see a postdoc of at least 2-4 years to be considered for a senior scientist position.

Whether you have senior in your title is just nomenclature at pharma companies. Plenty do have it in your title just after PhD, reserving Scientist roles for those coming out of BS who are doing grunt work. That said, other companies have those as “technician” and PhD (maybe masters) is start of Scientist.

Getting hung up on title in Pharma is not a good move. It isn’t uniform at all.

I agree that nomenclature is just jargon. There's also the context of the parent, that senior jobs are typically available right out of university. I do not know the field the parent is in, though. In my experience of the biomedical field, this isn't the case. I'm a postdoc at a good medical school in the US, and most of the postdocs I've interacted with would happily take an industry job if they could manage it - there just aren't enough jobs to go around. The prospects for fresh Phds are even more grim.

Worked pretty smoothly for me. Probably helped that I had some relatively good looking private sector consulting gigs during my doctorate and post doc.

I think this depends on the field. If you're working 5+ years at a postdoc earning no money that time would have probably been better spent in industry.

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