[tincholio]

I do. I was in academia for over 15 years, and exited almost 2 years ago. Since then I've published quite a few papers, and stayed active in conference organization / journal editorial activities. Lately, I've slowed down notoriously, I'm busy enough with my day job.

I think it helps if you have a good group of people to work with, since it motivates you, and you get good feedback (also helpful if they're still in academia and can easily register/attend conferences and/or pay open access fees).

[r0rbit]

Why did you decide to exit academia?

[tincholio]

Death by a thousand paper cuts. Bad management making bad decisions, funding getting harder and harder to get, pressure to do contract research (I was at a large public research institute, not at a uni)... Things were going downhill quickly and seemingly irreversibly, so I was no longer happy there, and there were no good alternatives in research where I live.

[r0rbit]

Sounds rough :(

[tincholio]

It was... but if you do care about science, you can still do it :)