[mng2]

I have done instrumentation work in US HEP. It is fun to do stuff nobody else (or very few) people are doing, in labs with very cool stuff, working with extremely smart people.

However there will be a few extremely smart jerks, and leadership seems to spend a lot of time applying/fighting for funding. I definitely got the sense that there was a pecking order. The PhDs are at the top, engineers and technicians don't get as much respect. Also in these days I hear that US national labs are moving to a more "flexible" model. In days past an engineer might be assigned to an experiment for the duration, but now leadership wants to be able to assign resources on a more fine-grained basis. (Though I think this is becoming more the case in industry too.)

All that said, if I was in a position to not mind a pay cut, I'd definitely consider going back to pure research.