Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like?

#61

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #53

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a tier one, you are paid to do research, not teach, unless you are a clinical or adjunct. So it’s not just the professor binning teaching as overhead, but the universities as well. If you love teaching, then being a professor at a top tier CS program might not be the right choice.

Who teaches if not the professors? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any academic position without teaching responsibilities.

Nor did I claim as such. It is just often considered necessary overhead.

Re: Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like?

#62

Post by replicant » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

As soon as I finished my PhD in computational science, I left to the Bay Area. I did consider some positions in academia, but as others have described, the low impact of the problems I was working on and the path to permanent position didn't really motivate me. I have been one year in industry and though I am doing something different, filtering and sensor fusion, I would describe my overall experience as very positive. I still get to read a lot of papers, work with very intelligent and motivated people and every now and then I get some praise from my coworkers on my maths knowledge, which is nice. Deadlines are tighter and the metrics in which my work is judged on are very different.

Re: Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like?

#63

Post by barry-cotter » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #56

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a tier one, you are paid to do research, not teach, unless you are a clinical or adjunct. So it’s not just the professor binning teaching as overhead, but the universities as well. If you love teaching, then being a professor at a top tier CS program might not be the right choice.

Teaching, research and service is the traditional job description for tenure-track professors. Which tier one school does not expect and pay CS profs to teach?

Carnegie Mellon has no problem with you not teaching anything but grad courses if you bring in enough grant money to cover your salary and I’m not sure they care if you teach grad courses either.

Re: Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like?

#64

Post by jarvist » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #51

expertentipp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Profs treated me with a combination with disrespect and contempt (when they were not outright ignoring me). That's my experience of working with PhDs in software development (Germany). Yes, you are very smart Mr. Dr. Whatever. No, your PhD doesn't give you authority on picking the building blocks for the front-end and devops stacks. Now chill and bugger off, go back to the C++ image processing ML models (1 year…

I've worked with lots of PhDs from all over the world, and I've seen something similar from the Germans among them. Trying to assign menial tasks to their "lesser" colleagues; trying to meddle in their work and impose arbitrary decisions on them. In fact, I've seen them do it among themselves and not just to the non-PhDs.

The German academic system is extremely hierarchical. So the head of the lab will be on all of the papers, in spite of having no academic input etc. Possibly the German PhDs you've met have inherited this toxic system as being the management style to aspire to.

Re: Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like?

#65

Post by walshemj » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

rawland wrote: post #20

The answers to this question will be as spread as possible, as a PhD is hardly comparable to another PhD. Academic experience varies as much as the experience of working as a toilet cleaner compared to a man of independent means (= someone who stopped working for his/her money) - had to look this up (German: Privatier). It seems to me that there is no word for this in the English language which transports the true me…

Interesting usage as in English that sounds like a privateer aka a state sponsored Pirate.

Re: Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like?

#66

Post by dharmab » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

rawland wrote: post #32

kaybe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's generally called financial independence in English.

Thanks, kaybe. After discussions with my SO she suggested to checkout wikipedia, and guess what we found: Privatier ([pʀiˈvaˈtjeː], also spelled Privatus, with the feminine forms Privata or Privatière, meaning "private person") is a French word that was used from the 19th century in Germany and some other countries as a title by members of bourgeois families of substantial financial means in lieu of another professio…

"Privateer" has two more common meanings:

- State funded sea pirates, esp. during the 17th and 18th centuries

- In motorsports, a team which is funded by a private individual or group instead of a public corporation

"Financial independance" is the correct modern term.

Re: Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like?

#67

Post by travjones » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

I graduated this past semester (Fall 2018), but I started working in industry a little over a year ago. I knew in my second/third year that academia wasn’t for me. However, grad school gave me a paycheck (albeit small) + tuition and time to develop other skills that I did not have after undergrad. Further I had an awesome PhD advisor and enjoyed my research.

My experience in grad school wasn’t bad and I think it only benefited me when transitioning to industry. At my job, I thoroughly enjoy my work and team (it’s important you find your fit). The compensation bump was also nice compared to a PhD student stipend.

Re: Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like?

#68

Post by apohn » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

I've got PhD in a quantitative social science from an R1 university, so my experience may be different than others with PhDs in CS, Engineering, or the Physical Sciences.

In my view moving to industry was one of the best decisions I made in my life. Much(!!) better salary, much easier to find jobs, lots of choices of where to live, and better work/life balance. Having a decent salary and job choices also helped to stabilize my personal life as well.

The big reasons for leaving academia were job and money. Some of the brightest people I knew were fighting to get $40K postdocs jobs in high cost of living cities. Others were taking adjunct professor jobs in towns they didn't want to live in. All of it to hopefully one day have a tenure track job. One of the research jobs I was a finalist for had a terrible salary in NYC, but they provided subsidized housing in what was basically student housing for faculty. Not getting that job was one of the last rejections before I gave up academia.

The small reasons were all around being disillusioned with academia, both with research and teaching. The more honest professors would tell students to explore life outside academia. The ego-manics would boast about how they had a great tenure process and great retirement benefits, but all that was gone for new graduates. Some of the best and worst human beings I've met in life were in academia.

I was lucky that before my PhD I was a developer. So I had a some credibility when I applied for roles in software companies.

Just for a different viewpoint, it's really hard to evaluate the life you didn't live. When I looked at my PhD cohort 1-5 years after graduation it looked liked academia was a terrible decision. 5-10 years out the folks who wanted to stay in academia are doing well and the ones who left are also doing well. By well I mean with life, not just money. So maybe in the long run things work out, but the first few years after graduating can be awful.

Re: Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like?

#69

Post by brian_spiering » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

I earned a PhD in Neuroscience. Then suffered through a couple of postdocs and was not advancing in that career. I jumped ship to tech, working at startups and big-ish companies in San Francisco. The money was nice but working style did not match my preferences (frequent interruptions, projects decided by others, and hierarchies).

I decided to go back to academia (and stay in SF), primarily teaching Data Science. I realized that teaching is my passion. I took a pay cut, but it is more joyful for me. I can pick the courses I teach and get to mentor students. As I long I deliver, I can manage my time how I please. I still consult with tech companies.

I realized that I had to make my own way through my life. I found my niche which is 75% academic and 25% industry.

Re: Ask HN: Academics who switched to industry, what's your experience been like?

#70

Post by expertentipp » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #51

expertentipp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Profs treated me with a combination with disrespect and contempt (when they were not outright ignoring me). That's my experience of working with PhDs in software development (Germany). Yes, you are very smart Mr. Dr. Whatever. No, your PhD doesn't give you authority on picking the building blocks for the front-end and devops stacks. Now chill and bugger off, go back to the C++ image processing ML models (1 year…

I've worked with lots of PhDs from all over the world, and I've seen something similar from the Germans among them. Trying to assign menial tasks to their "lesser" colleagues; trying to meddle in their work and impose arbitrary decisions on them. In fact, I've seen them do it among themselves and not just to the non-PhDs.

Yes, extremely toxic an infuriating. Cliquish self-satisfied judgmental hard-heads.