Comment by yiyus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yiyus | Hacker News Reader

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This.

I have worked for almost 15 years in academic research, but in very close collaboration with the steel industry. The code we write can help steel companies to save millions when developing new products. This is quite complex software, which combines materials science, mechanical engineering and advanced mathematical concepts while requiring high performance and reliability.

I found a nice position for a tenure track in France, in a top research centre. Besides designing and writing software, I would have to design and implement experimental plans, teach, deal with students and administration, keep an excellent publications record, and find funding for future projects. Remote work would not be a possibility (but I would work may unpaid extra hours at home). And the amount of published papers and recommendation letters required just to be considered for the job was overwhelming. My salary would be lower than $30k/year. They do not even know what is a RSE.

I am searching a remote job in the software industry now.

> But I would work may unpaid extra hours at home

I think that's incorrect. You would work the number of hours you wish to work (considering you produce reasonable value, but the bar is low). Research engineer (or researcher for that matter) in a public French research center is a civil servant position. They are difficult to get but you don't get fired unless something is blatantly wrong.

Source: I worked 10+ years in such a position. I work now for a FAANG and the pressure is considerably higher. Evaluations every 6 months, lot of peer pressure (engineers are on average better and more ambitious than those in academia and you need to keep up - some of them seem to work 24/7), extremely stressful oncalls. Gross salary is 5 times my previous salary and has the potential to increase much more.

Of course, this is certainly not representative of all cases, but most of the time, there's a price to pay for a higher salary. Another thing to think about is ageism: as a research engineer in academia, you're all set until retirement. In software industry, it's getting hard after 50.

seriously? in what kind of alternative reality does academia live to offer 30k?

European countries have lower salaries in general? Although their social safety nets are better.

Also, assistant professors (or the equivalent there) generally make less but do probably make more once they get tenure. I'm assuming they meant the tenure-track position itself is ~30K USD, but making tenure usually does mean a pay increase.

In the Netherlands, 30k is the starting salary for a PhD student.

30k for a tenure track position sounds insane to me.

In Ireland PhD stipends are closer to 13-17k. It's not a perfect comparison because the PhD stipends are tax free, so your comparative salary would be in the 17-20k mark. That said, Postdoc research positions are much closer to 40k than 30k.

That's still pretty miserable. In Germany, an assistent professor or postdoc makes 60k Euro after a few years, even when they are in the pay scale that only requires a master's degree (TVL-13).

I have spoken to quite a few that made minimum wage (which is not even close to 30k).

In the us, a few years ago, my program offered a stipend of 22,000 usd per year. Provided I taught a few classes, graded homework, tests, etc. While doing research and taking my own classes.

That was very lucky, many programs do not offer stipends and require people to take out loans.

The situation is a bit weird in The Netherlands. Some PhD students are paid employees (AiO), their gross salary is ~31000 to 40000 Euro per year (I think this is excluding vacation money, but including 13th month).

Then there are PhDs that get a scholarship (bursaal), that is only around 24000-25000 gross per year.

Not too long ago, there were only employee PhDs, but some universities really love the scholarship system, because they have to pay less tax, so it's a lot cheaper for the universities.

My wife had a PhD scholarship in NL and it really had some large negative effects after finishing her PhD:

- She contributed 4 years less into a pension fund, since bursary PhDs do not build up pension outside the state pension;

- In her next academic position, they didn't consider her four years of PhD work as working experience, while they did do that for me as an employee PhD. So, she was set back 4 years in salary growth.

- She finished her PhD in August and started a full time job after her PhD. Because she had an income that went over some threshold, she had to pay the taxes that the university dodged by using the scholarship system. She worked the rest of the year at a loss (the taxes were higher than the income from September-December).

The worst part of it is that many foreign PhD students do not realize that there is a two-class system.

Update: today's news is that the minister of education requires that all students on a PhD scholarship will get a regular employment from 2024 onwards:

https://ukrant.nl/minister-zet-definitief-streep-door-experi...

That is a pretty disappointing situation for a country that is known for being "progressive."

That's pretty tragic, aside from the pension - which I don't expect to receive anyway (like most everyone under 40).

For context, you have 7 weeks holiday, you can't get fired, your working hours are quite flexible. In France, medical expense, education is free. And outside of Paris and a few other big cities, rents are rather affordable. So all things considered, it's not a bad deal (which is why they do attract good candidates). And a typical SWE position in private sector in France would be $50-60K (of course there's variance there, but in academia, there are also ways to make extra money)

that's way to low even for private sector. flexible working hours are pretty much the new standard in SWE so not anymore even an argument

I've seen people get fired from a academia on several occasions... When they couldn't fire someone they beat them down so regularly and buried them so deep people left or had a mental breakdown.

I'm aware of several academics that are banking 1M+ annual providing consulting services.

Only possible if you are a late career academic with a lab and a publication record. They are paying for the prestige and the pipeline to new hires more than the technical advice (ok sometimes they pay for the technical advice but I’ve never seen that get a good roi). I can think of a few instances of professors consulting with companies where I worked and they all had grey hair and Tenure. The rich get richer, but these examples are a variant on ‘lottery winners can make good money’.

> you have 7 weeks holiday

Paid?

Paid.

come to Denmark! you can make about 60k a year as a phd student!

But then you need to learn Danish. Brains can only fit that much stuff ;-)

A university lecturer in the UK will start at around £30-35k.

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