[borroka]

Very understandable. I worked as a post doc for 8 years, with a paltry salary, I must say I had excellent advisors, so the experience was professionally enjoyable and I had the opportunity to sharpen my skills, travel the world for work, and have fun in general.

But in spite of an excellent CV, with the caveat that I had no affiliations with top schools and was not part of any in-group--I did not know how important both would be for an academic career, I though my many well-cited publications and clear and long-term research plans would have been enough.

Over the years, I applied for at least 70 tenure-track positions for which I felt I had a good chance of making at least the shortlist of 20 viable candidates. I was called for just one preliminary phone interview.

I started applying for industrial positions in Machine Learning and, after receiving a few offers, took a job that paid 5 times my last postdoc salary (my last contract was 6 months, so it would have been 10 times). It has been a fulfilling, very well paid, and fun career so far.

I always recommend that not-too-promising postdocs consider a career in the private sector early on, especially in technology or related fields. They rarely listen, think or led to believe they are different. They aren't.

[throwawaymaths]

> But in spite of an excellent CV, with the caveat that I had no affiliations with top schools and was not part of any in-group--I did not know how important both would be for an academic career, I though my many well-cited publications and clear and long-term research plans would have been enough.

Even those are not enough. I had all of those (great undergrad and grad school pedigree, postdoc with a novel laureate, publications...) You need to have a final boss who will go to bat for you, unfortunately the Nobel laureate was 84 and more into playing slots at the Indian casino/fucking around in the lab than he was in advocating for my career.

[apohn]

>You need to have a final boss who will go to bat for you, unfortunately the Nobel laureate was 84 and more into playing slots at the Indian casino/fucking around in the lab than he was in advocating for my career.

This is one of the things I like about industry jobs. Your career at a company might grow or be derailed by one person, but it's just that particular company. If it's a big company, it's just that particular org. In academia a single person can derail your entire career. As you've pointed out, sometimes it's not even malice. They just aren't interested in doing what they need to support you.

At one point my skip-level was a VP at a software company who loved to push people into doing things by saying "Think about your career. If you do things right you will be set for life." Outside of his tiny universe at that company, nobody even knew he existed. I burned some bridges with that person and some of his sycophants, but I just moved on to a different company with zero ramifications.

It's liberating to be able to just say F-it and move on.

[borroka]

That's alluring.

It is true that you can change companies and rapidly leave behind all the problems and conflicts and issues you had in your previous jobs.

In academia, first, it is very challenging to move to another institution after you start your tenure track position (few jobs available, students need to be taken care of, it is at least a 2-year move), second if you have "issues" with other people in the field, and especially when they are more powerful than you (better known, better network, better financing), you have a miserable professional life in front of you. I see many an academic living on the verge of psychological collapse.

Freedom has no price, for all the rest there is money in the bank account.