Transitioning from academia to industry: a horizontal growth
January 1, 2021 was the first day that I was no longer in academia. I was confident and to this date, I have not regretted my decision. Am I never gonna go back to academia? The answer is I do not know! I do not know what opportunities will come along my way in the future. But I know for a fact that I will again thoroughly think it through and consider all the criteria when an opportunity arises.
Friends and colleagues and those who I meet for the first time at a party or a conference ask me why I left academia. You have probably heard several stories of transitioning from academia to industry and no longer wish to hear another story, I feel you! But before you stop reading the rest of this article, let me tell you one thing: life is not all about vertical growth and climbing up the corporate/academia ladder. To some of us, it might be more interesting and challenging to grow horizontally. To stop by every now and then, reevaluate our values, look around, check out all available roads, and pick the right path at that point in spacetime.
For those of you who got to this point, let me briefly tell you about things I considered and evaluated through the last year and a half of my academic life. I hope this will be helpful for folks who are at a relatively advanced level in their scientific career, i.e. a postdoc or a faculty who are considering to transition to a non-academic job or want to better understand why others make such a move.
Hyper-specialization: as one advances in their academic career, they become more and more specialized in their research topic to an extent that perhaps only 100 other people in the world are on their same boat. While this is great and needed for shaking the edges and moving the boundaries of science, it is not for everyone. Some people do not enjoy narrowing down on one specific topic and limiting their perspectives. Rather, they enjoy expanding their knowledge and developing their skills in different fields. While making a decision, think which one you are or want to be! This is aligned with your preferences of growing vertically versus horizontally.
Title: highly correlated with moving vertically in one career, job titles become more and more flashy as you continue climbing one ladder. Academic hierarchy takes you from a grad student, to a postdoc, to a junior faculty, to a tenured and to a full professor, and eventually might bring a train of flashy titles before the professor “you”. This is probably very important for most people. So you need to seriously think about it before you leave academia. Are you ready to lose all those flashy titles and start from (almost) scratch in a new ladder (if you choose another vertical path)? Leaving academia at an advanced level in your career might put you down on the lower level of yet another hierarchical system. Ask yourself how much it matters to you while thinking of your next step.
Geospatial coordinates: being tied to specific coordinates on the planet limits your opportunities, especially in academia. On a personal level and as an immigrant, after living in three other states and traveling to more than half of the states, when I moved to New York, I, for the first time felt like this was the city that I belonged to. I did not want to relocate. I did not want to sacrifice that new enjoyable sense of belonging for a professorship somewhere else in the US carrying over the always a foreigner feeling. While my example is unique to an immigrant who loves to live in NYC, geographical preferences are an important factor for most people. There is a trade-off; a work-life balance. Think about how much you care about where you live.
Income: academic positions in science are one of the most prestigious jobs in the world, yet with one of the lowest salaries a PhD can get. A science postdoc gets about one third of what they could get in an industrial job with their level of knowledge, skills, and expertise. This is again a trade-off you need to consider when deciding if you’d want to stay in academia or leave. It is a personal choice, but definitely an important factor, especially when you live in an expensive city.
Diversity: regardless of where we are or what we do, most of us still live in our own bubbles. How big your bubble is depends on your lifestyle. Academic bubbles are definitely smaller than non-academic bubbles. In academia, you are most likely surrounded and only interact with the current or future scientists on a daily basis. On the other hand, not everyone in your team is a scientist in industry and in fact maybe only a couple of other scientists exist in your team or on the whole floor of your company. If you like to experience other lifestyles and interact with totally different mindsets and hobbies, industry has definitely more to offer. But be aware that it is sometimes really hard to plug in when changing to a new environment. Different groups certainly have their own cultures and while you can totally play your role in building the culture of a group, it will take time and effort to make that transition. Think about how much a diverse group matters to you.
Having let more than a year pass since I started my journey outside of academia, I felt I was more equipped to talk about my transition. I have been truly enjoying the challenges of learning new topics on a daily basis, exploring and generating new ideas in fields I had never thought of working on, and expanding my horizons not only in science and technology, but also in new work cultures and relationships. I hope the aforementioned points and my thought processes would help you make the right decision, if you are a life-long learner who enjoys challenges and is now debating whether to stay or leave academia.
Feel free to add your experiences in comments and/or ping me if you need to further discuss any of these points.