[FourSigma]

I am extremely happy that the my initial postdoc route was a total bust. It was so hard to leave academia and take a risk in the startup space directly after my PhD. I ended up in data engineering/science at a small EdTech startup. Looking beyond the bump in salary (relative to a postdoc), I find my work extremely rewarding, love my colleagues, and really look forward to going into work everyday and developing my skill set. This was probably the best career decision that I made in life so far. This non-traditional career path is hard for my family, friends, and professors to fully digest and absorb. My dad still wonders why I got a degree in virology/immunology and decided to basically go into software engineering. My friends who are still in academia think I made a terrible mistake going into a startup scene completely unrelated to my graduate education. However, I feel like I am getting great training and setting up for a wonderful career. I seriously doubt I would have felt the same way if I ended up as a postdoc in some research lab.

[HammingFeynman]

I don't think you can judge such a decision as being a mistake. Usually, if it turns out well, then it is not, and otherwise, it is! I think it is important to pursue what drives you and follow your curiosity! I wish you all the best, it is refreshing to hear that you look forward to going into work, I feel that that excitement makes all the difference! Good luck!

[otoburb]

Is there any chance that you would wish to initiate research part-time in your field? I would presume any self-funded research program would need to be limited in scope and heavily weighted towards computational citizen science, which seems to be where your growing skillset can be readily applied.

[IndianAstronaut]

>computational citizen science,

This is actually a good approach. As a former bio PhD now in software, I am working on some side projects in the area.

[FourSigma]

I would definitely be interested. One the biggest problems is that the barrier for entry to do any type of laboratory science is really high (lab space, equipment, expensive kits and reagents, etc) compared to software. I think bioinformatics is a good place to start.

[timroy]

FourSigma and IndianAstronaut, what do you think about doing bioinformatics as research, formulating and testing hypotheses, and then either using a cloud lab or a garage lab for at least some wetlab testing?

I've been researching intensively whether to go get a life sciences PhD, and I'm now leaning instead toward just learning bioinformatics and ML, with the wetlab stuff as an adjunct. If that's an effective way to do "real research", then it might be more accessible.

[FourSigma]

I would 100% lean towards to a more computational skill set while having some exposure to a wet-lab experimentation. I think having a data science skill set in biology is becoming extremely valuable. Moreover, if you choose to leave academia you have a set of skills that are in high demand across a range of industries.

[timroy]

Thanks for the advice! That's very helpful to fold into my research/analysis of next steps. :-)

[ludamad]

Luckily, 'programmer with thorough knowledge of X' is almost always a desirable skill set, for any given field X. But seriously, I never knock a job that someone is happy about.

[glial]

Would you care to share where you're working? I'm finishing a PhD in cognitive science (grad minor in computer science) and am interested in the EdTech space.