[twphysicsphd99]

The toxic lab/advisor is a very real issue.

I've seen some of my smartest friends stagnate to the point of being 9-10th year phds without the ability to navigate the job market. These are people at places like MIT and Caltech.

One of my regrets was turning down an offer at a FAANG to go to grad school in 2014. I finished up in 2020 and couldn't even land an interview despite having a pretty good publication/open-source track record. My advisor was no help on the job market, I felt kicked to the curb.

Took me 1 year to find a job (backend engineer) and I'm still grappling with the fact that I wasted my 20's doing a PhD when I could've at least enjoyed life a little bit more and had a bit of a financial cushion. Honestly, being a swe in industry is a vacation compared to the uncertainty and workload during the phd.