NASA.

I know a few people who wanted to get away from the FANG hype grind and went to NASA.

They tell me they’re doing actual engineering for engineerings sake. Which sounds great.

Salary obviously not comparable to FANG 400k plus but the satisfaction and pride is well worth the sacrifice to them.

Me and most of my friends are “super American” like I’m an immigrant who wears USA hats and t shirts. I would love to work at NASA once I have established a little place for myself here. I would be so proud to contribute to this country and its success in space and research.

I think that if you have a PhD in the right field and enough hip publications that many of the FAANG companies still have research teams like that operating in a diminished capacity. It appears to me that many of these positions have been replaced by administrators who are more interested in hiring to a specific set of demographics.

Perhaps Altos Labs (aging). Perhaps also Isomorphic Labs (protein design) will also become such a place. Both are still quite new.

Microsoft Research is also pivoting into this area.

mRNA designs are still a bit primitive. Moderna and BioNTech resemble corporations, rather than skunkworks.