Life after PhD | career choice

[hyperrun]

As I approach the culmination of my doctoral studies in Austria this autumn, I find myself at a crossroads regarding my career path post-PhD. My journey through the PhD program has been enriching, offering not only a deep dive into my academic field but also invaluable life lessons and problem-solving skills. Reflecting on my experience, I would readily choose this path again, given the growth and learning it has afforded me.

The prospect of finishing my PhD opens up a myriad of opportunities, spanning academia and industry alike, thanks to the healthy job market in my area (IT). My considerations include:

1) Continuing in academia by embracing a teaching role and navigating the path towards a professorship.
2) Transitioning into the corporate world.
3) Merging entrepreneurial aspirations with my technical skills by nurturing my own company.

A post-doctoral position has been semi-officially proposed by my advisor, a proposition that leaves me ambivalent about remaining in academia or even at the current institution. My advisor, having benefitted from international experience, once advised exploring opportunities abroad, an idea that resonates with my desire for broader exposure. Despite my academic engagements, my experience in the traditional workforce feels limited, having completed several internships and university-associated work over the last 3.5 years. The allure of industry experience before settling into a definitive career trajectory is strong.

However, my entrepreneurial spirit, kindled seven years ago with the founding of a small software company, remains undiminished. This venture, though modest, has been a source of joy and learning, covering all aspects of business operation from client interaction to product development and maintenance. This holistic business experience is something I deeply value.

Currently, I am inclined towards a hybrid approach, combining employment in a company with the continued development of my own enterprise. This strategy offers the stability of a regular income while affording the freedom to pursue personal projects that are both challenging and fulfilling. My goal is not to engage in transient or inconsequential projects but to develop meaningful products that leverage my technical background and passion.

In the realm of IT, where the barriers to entry are relatively low, I am motivated by the potential to create impactful, innovative solutions. This dual path not only aligns with my professional and personal aspirations but also offers a pragmatic framework for navigating the post-PhD landscape.

In my freetime, I enjoy sports and like to spend my time programming, especially with Rust. Many of my weekends go into coding new things. Since last semester, I'm also working on a master's degree in business and law, and I find the law part really interesting.

Your insights or experiences in making such a transition, especially in balancing entrepreneurial endeavors with a career in industry or academia, would be greatly appreciated.

[Chris Pascale]

At the start of his career, and the end, my father taught as an adjunct. It gave him great pleasure to do so.

Some things to think about:
 - How much money from a corporate opportunity makes it worth it to only do that for the moment?
 - Do you love teaching, or perhaps the flexibility of the academic environment (sabbaticals, for example)?
 - Could you support yourself with a business? How do you know?

[Freedomin5]

Sure, why not try all the things and see which ones work out?

At the end of my doctoral studies, I both taught as an adjunct and worked in the corporate world. The corporate world paid better and allowed us to laser focus on FIRE. Now that we are FI and are therefore “work optional”, I’ve gone back to teaching in a very part-time capacity. And I’m getting ready to transition into entrepreneurship because we now have a decent financial cushion that allows us to take more risks.

[Laura33]

Honestly, it sounds like you've already answered your own question.  The only reason I hear for staying in academia is because your advisor has suggested it.  Do you really, really love both teaching and independent research?  Because if you want the academic track, you're going to be working your ass off at both for a lot of years. 

The only thing you mentioned that you sound legitimately excited about is running a company.  But it also sounds like you're smart enough to realize you might not have enough experience in all those other aspects of running a business to rely solely on that.  So why not look for an international job, and in your spare time continue to develop your business?  That seems to be where you've landed, right?  What's holding you back? 

[lhamo]

Can you elaborate a bit more about why you think a corporate job + your own small company is the best fit?

Here in the US many companies will claim the intellectual property rights for things you develop while working for them.  If you are planning to do the corporate job + side company route, I would be very clear with prospective employers and be sure that you have legal protection for your company and any IP, etc. you have already developed or may continue to develop in that context.

My son is in CS and the typical model in that field seems to be that CS professors/post-docs/students co-found companies on the side -- either independently or through university incubator programs.  If the latter, then the university often has shares in the company.  Their day jobs working for the university give them financial stability and, therefore, somewhat reduce the need to shop around for VC money, at least in the early stages.  DS went to work for one of these companies after he finished his BS -- it was still fairly early stages then, I think he was employee #35 or something.  They were doing really well when he was there, but then started to struggle a bit when they grew rapidly (I think they were up to 200 employees when he left for his Ph.D. program after about 2 years) and corporate money/interest started drying up.  Now they are back being flush with money again because they are in the AI/machine learning space and that whole world exploded with interest after ChatGPT went bananas.  He still has shares in the company, as does his GF who joined even earlier than him.  So maybe if the company gets acquired they will have the luxury of coasting on their early stage shares while they figure out what they want to do with their lives.

Similar things can happen by blending corporate work with your own company, I suppose.  And it isn't like the people working university jobs + companies are slacking -- most of them are workaholics and even with that one side or the other often gets less attention (DS complains about how hard it is to get the attention/time of some of his advisors who are working this model).

Hope you find the path that is the best fit for your talents and interests!  The good thing with most STEM field careers is that if you take the corporate route and decide it isn't a good fit for  you, it is not impossible to go back to university work.  Not really the same in social sciences/humanities.  Once I chose to leave academia for a non-profit job I was pretty much writing off any possibility of a tenure-track/tenured job for the future. 

[FLBiker]

Personally, I wouldn't pursue professorship as a career.  I've worked in higher education for much of my life, and the folks I know that have sought tenure track positions have typically have very little choice as far as where they work.  Those positions are often so competitive that they have to take them wherever they can get them.  And, for me, the freedom to choose where I live is very important.  That said, most of the people I know were in social sciences, and CS / IT might be very different.

Teaching as an adjunct, of course, is a totally different story.

[trollwithamustache]

The post doc sounds like a waste of time.  The problem with PhDs (and maybe problem is too strong a word), is you got really deep into one super specific thing. In general PhDs have no experience how the greater world works because they have devoted so much time/effort to that one specific area. Getting out there is how you start to figure out how the world really works.

[hyperrun]

At the start of his career, and the end, my father taught as an adjunct. It gave him great pleasure to do so.

Some things to think about:
 1. How much money from a corporate opportunity makes it worth it to only do that for the moment?
 2. Do you love teaching, or perhaps the flexibility of the academic environment (sabbaticals, for example)?
 3. Could you support yourself with a business? How do you know?

• To be honest: I don't know. I guess I'm not talking about money (yet), but rather general life directions. The financially most sensible thing to do is of course go the corporate-job-route.
• I never tried teaching, thus I can't say if I love it. (Academic) conferences are certainly a nice thing, at least in the short term, as you travel quite a bit (+: you get to see a lot, -: enviromental impact). I guess what I enjoyed the most during my PhD was the setting: Quite interesting + smart people all around me. Many cool ideas floating around. In general the 'small talk'/'office chatter' is highly stimulating. But reflecting on this, this is probably true for many corporate jobs as well.
• Probably not? I make ~150€/month, although I explicitly kept that low (to be able to focus on my PhD). My main problem is probably with the type of work: I used to do small things (think of creating websites, etc), where I don't see myself working on as my full job. I want to do something more fulfilling.

Sure, why not try all the things and see which ones work out?

At the end of my doctoral studies, I both taught as an adjunct and worked in the corporate world. The corporate world paid better and allowed us to laser focus on FIRE. Now that we are FI and are therefore “work optional”, I’ve gone back to teaching in a very part-time capacity. And I’m getting ready to transition into entrepreneurship because we now have a decent financial cushion that allows us to take more risks.

I have a financial cushion of ~ 150k €. So I could sustain myself for quite some time (assuming similar expenses of ~500€/month, which is probably not realistic).

Honestly, it sounds like you've already answered your own question.  The only reason I hear for staying in academia is because your advisor has suggested it.  Do you really, really love both teaching and independent research?  Because if you want the academic track, you're going to be working your ass off at both for a lot of years. 

The only thing you mentioned that you sound legitimately excited about is running a company.  But it also sounds like you're smart enough to realize you might not have enough experience in all those other aspects of running a business to rely solely on that.  So why not look for an international job, and in your spare time continue to develop your business?  That seems to be where you've landed, right?  What's holding you back? 

Re. your first paragraph: I mostly enjoy the surroundings (co-workers, etc). And the general attitude of trying to make the world a bit better by doing science.

Can you elaborate a bit more about why you think a corporate job + your own small company is the best fit?

It would combine the diversity of having my own company+ the stable income of the corporate job. Reflecting on this, maybe (just) working in (the right) corporate job would satisfy this as well.

Current preferred path: Work in a corporate job + do interesting work in my own company and let's see how that goes.

Why am I reluctant to do this?
I don't like hacking stuff together. One thing that I think I would like at my company is to start with small applications, where I don't have legacy code. Where I have a sensible basis to build further stuff. I heard so many stories/complaints from my friends where they are 'forced' to work on a project which is badly set up. I don't want that. I want to write clean code. But maybe this assumption is wrong, and there are many companies where I can write nice, clean code. Without (too many) hacks. I guess I'll just have to find out :-)