[mathattack]

It would seem like anyone worth their salt in computer science could get a corporate job after 7 years at any school, especially Harvard. It seems like the concept of having a failed career is much less than if the Phd was in Philosophy.

[RogerL]

I honestly don't know what the job market is like for a CS PhD, so I can't rebut this statement. On the other hand, we interview a lot of PhD.s, and by and large they have little clue about how to provide value. They want to sketch out ideas in Matlab, and throw it over the wall to a bunch of programmers (which in the academic world are postdocs and grad students) to deal with the "implementation details". Many can't write a simple for loop.

That's sweeping, overstated, and unfair of me, but the job skills are quite different. Applied, directed research aimed at producing tangible and sell-able results is very hard, and by-and-large not what they do, at least based on who applies and interviews (which is of course a terribly biased and perhaps non-representative selection).

[mathattack]

Based on personal experience (small sample size), Phds in Computer Science can find homes at consulting firms (hired for "being smart"), and software and hardware firms that utilize their speciality, and even hedge funds. It can be hard to unlearn habits over 6 or 7 years, but I've seen it happen.

The real point though is it's a lot easier than many other fields.

[scott_s]

That's not the case where I work.

[ams6110]

Transitioning to a corporate job after 7 years in academia would be a culture shock for most people, to say the least.

[mathattack]

It would, but people pull it off. Here's one example, also from Harvard. http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-im-leaving-harvar...

I think it's much easier in Computer Science than other fields - say the humanities, or biology or chemistry.