[aazaa]

The training you get during a PhD is mostly your responsibility. There are good academic PIs who know how to actually mentor students. From them you can learn a lot about research and people. Most professors lack the soft skills needed to mentor and grow students because it's rarely a condition for employment.

The growth you do during a PhD is, therefore, mostly on you. If you're not the type who can teach themselves and have fun doing it then, perhaps ironically, you're going to find it extremely difficult in a PhD program.

Given the right company, you may be surprised at the opportunities open to you. Technical people tend to over-rate the "interestingness" of the work being done and under-rate the quality of the work environment when looking for jobs.

Think hard and very honestly about what work environment you'd do best in, work hard to find that environment. If you do, it doesn't sound like you'll miss those three letters that much in a few years.