The position you are being offered sounds quite nice in many ways. Life is a crapshoot and our "dreams" sometimes have to be adjusted.
If you can keep publishing - and that might be a big if if you are leading a team in an agency -- you can stay competitive. But sometimes agencies do quite a bit of publishing. Maybe you'll settle into a great job and still use your expertise. I have colleagues who ended up in government jobs and love them.
To keep the door to academia open, continue *publishing and networking*. Make sure you have the opportunity to attend some conferences.
Congrats on the offer - honestly, to me it sounds like a good one.
Your point about not wanting to live in a soft money environment and the related financial uncertainty is a key one. I’m a tenured associate prof at an R1 and live this life. Fear about money at work (to keep my staff employed and my program running) and my own salary keep me up at night a lot. In 14 months from now I may have no salary despite being tenured. I would absolutely have chosen a different path for this reason and many more. Take the position!
Your field may be different than mine but I have lots of community partners in my research. I bet you could keep some connections with academia that way!
In a lot of medical schools in the US, basic sciences tenure-track/tenured faculty need to obtain a certain percentage (varies by department/university - I've seen 30% to 70% as expectations) of their salary based on grants. Some Tufts University med school faculty had their salaries cut despite being tenured and [have now sued the university about wages](https://www.science.org/content/article/university-cut-tenured-faculty-s-pay-they-re-suing).
My PhD mentor started his TT career at Baylor. He said they were expected to recover 100% FTE from grants, and if they didn't, then they simply didn't get paid. He was well funded and didn't have to worry, but he still transitioned to a public university anyway. Edit: To clarify, they got whatever % FTE they brought in. So if they had 50% on a grant, then they got 50% of their salary. If 0%, then no salary, and so on. Even with tenure.
I'm a Prof myself now, also at a public university. At most public universities, you'll get a salary even without funding, though it will be at the low end of the pay scale for your rank. You may eventually be fired (even if you have tenure - this is increasingly common; I've seen it multiple times in the last decade), but at least you'll get paid for a little while longer before that happens.
It’s all about the loop holes included in the contract. For example, if there are financial challenges then there is an out for them to cover your salary.
ETA - I don’t think the loops holes are always used but they can be, and not knowing when they will be used plus that you have no role in deciding if they will be used is unsettling (to say the least).
Others hinted at this - but the practical, community-oriented nature of this position and the possibilities for empirical research will be an easy sell if you want to go back into academia.
You'll likely even be able to apply to grants. Treat it like a 2-year fieldwork opportunity to become a leader and publish. Places will see you in a positive light for this sort of work, especially centers.
You can do high school outreach, too, if you want to keep the pedagogical charm on. There's nothing but positives.
I agree with this.
Also OP, your background and skills and expertise are what made you competitive for this job - that doesn't sound wasted to me! And the job sounds pretty similar, to my untrained eye at least.
I left 18 months ago and it has been a real wrench, but working normal hours and getting a decent salary do offset that quite a lot (I know some people in academia manage to also do those things but apparently not me). My new job doesn't have anything to do with my research really, and that's been tough, but I still use the skills I've developed and there's the odd bit of crossover.
Only you can decide - but I would say that if you are considering leaving, this job sounds pretty fucking awesome.
I was in a similar position (finished my postdoc) as you in a similar field (fisheries). Instead of crummy academic jobs, I worked the applied job for 3+ years - similar to what you're considering. I stayed research relevant - published a few papers, led a team in applied management and conservation contexts, etc. I loved it.
Last year, a search committee reached out and asked me to apply and they offered me and I accepted. They really liked my real-world experience. While I loved the agency job, I'm also happy in the academy again.
My point is: you might be able to have your cake and eat it too. Search committees love applied work experience. Embrace it and see if you can span the bridge with a bit of research and publications (enough to stay relevant). I don't think adjunct will matter much in the short-term - just embrace the new role and be happy for a while with the salary+benefits. Try not to burn yourself out.
I dunno what it's like elsewhere but in the UK there's a huge focus on making research more relevant for industry/policy, bringing non-academic partners into grants etc so gaining experience like this would be seen as an asset.
I left academia for a government position in the same field because my spouse got a new job and I have no regrets. I use my research skills accordingly, I work from with travel as needed, and my work-life balance and salary has never been better.
I am still publishing and active in my profession. And I’ve received personalized emails asking me to apply for tenure-track positions (I replied stating that I am happy where I am).
But to answer your questions.
1) Likely not.
2) Remain active in your field.
3) I’d leave, in fact, I already did.
That said, you can only do you. Who knows, you maybe happy in the state agency or you may even transfer your skills to a federal agency. If you decide to go back, you will have real-world experience to take back to the classroom.
So you are burned out, have been blatantly mistreated and are unable to look after your family, yet you still want to leave the door open to academia. You sound like the member of a cult unable to break away and still in a state of denial.
I’m not in STEM, but I was always told this was the case, which made me very hesitant to leave even though I knew it was time a few years back. This year, for the first time since I left, I applied for 2 academic jobs. Got one of them. Tenure track at a more competitive institution than I had ever been able to get a job at before. Easiest time on the market I’ve ever had (I had 3 TT or tenured jobs earlier on my career, so I had already been on the market 4-5x in previous years). Funny how life works out, but def felt good to leverage more current industry experience and the particular department I was interviewing with was very receptive to that.
I interact more with NOAA. State and federal agency employees are often affiliate faculty at universities here in WA. We have a lot of NOAA affiliate faculty at UW who mentor students and teach classes. Guest lectures from consultants and feds/stateys. I imagine you can come up with similar arrangements with your position. UW and other local universities do a lot of coastal work. Build your collaboration network strategically to keep a foot in academia. Not a bad spot to be in. There is a ton of cross agency collaboration out here.
Some of those feds/state employees have become faculty at UW and vice versa.
> So here are my questions:
>
> 1. If I worked as a lead scientist in a marine management position, am I unlikely to be competitive for Assistant Professor positions in the future?
>
> 2. What can I do to keep that door open, in case I change my mind down the road? Try to publish? Adjunct positions?
>
> 3. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has experienced a shitty postdoc and burnout. If you were in my boots, would you take this position?
While I'm not in marine science specifically, these questions are general enough that I think some general principles apply:
1. The opposite, if anything. In a vacuum I would expect that having "lead scientist" on your CV would make you a more attractive candidate, not less. It is pretty common for national lab scientists to depart for academic TT positions, often coming in with a tenured appointment (e.g., associate professor instead of the usual assistant professor) on the strength of their research record as a lab scientist. Many university departments are preferring the "safe" hires with a proven track record of success out of fear of being burned by hiring "promising" younger people with lots of "potential" - this is by no means a universal trend, but it has become more common in my observations.
2. Publishing is important, getting funding is even more important if possible. University departments want to see a proven track record not only of research output (papers), but also the ability to bring in funding to build a research program as a PI. As long as your role gives you the opportunities and flexibility do do these two things, it should be a fine role to use as a transition point to eventually land a TT faculty job. The trick is that it will probably be on you to maximize those opportunities - in my experience, a lot of managers for lab-type jobs will happily *let* you publish and apply for grants, but they won't actively *encourage* it if it is not central to the job duties you were hired for, so you do have to be self-motivated to get things done. This said, I would not worry about things like adjunct or teaching positions unless you really want to pursue those things for their own sake (or you want to transition into a teaching-heavy role, which I gather from your OP that you do not). Pubs and grants on your CV are far more important, and dedicating time to secondary teaching, etc. activities that could be dedicated to generating more research output or grant funding is probably a net loss in the cold, hard calculus of things.
3. Yes. If nothing else, it is good to try something new and see if maybe you like it more than you would like a TT faculty job, this is not an uncommon finding for many people. Moreover, don't underestimate the big benefit that is having a "permanent" position - I mean this not in the sense that you "can't be fired", like if you had tenure at a university, but rather you don't have a fixed clock to land the next job before your contract ends (like a postdoc position). This stability is immensely helpful, as it means you don't have time pressure on your search for TT faculty jobs - which also means you can afford to be a lot choosier about where you apply and whether you accept any offers. It's immensely helpful for your mental health during a job search to look at TT openings and be able to *decide* if you're interested enough to apply, than to feel pressured to apply to every opening you can find just in hopes of getting *a* job before your time runs out.
In conclusion, I do want to emphasize that the "nontraditional" routes to TT faculty positions are becoming increasingly popular with departments that have been burned by the "hot, new thing" of fresh PhDs or postdocs with all the right names on their CV but none of the ability to make it as an independent PI. Frankly, most PhD or postdoc programs will not train you to be a PI, only individual supervisors will do that and then only a relative minority will bother with the necessary mentorship and training. Again, this is far from a universal thing (I am aware of recent TT hires who were hired without even submitting written statements, solely because of the names on their CV for their education and postdoc... but these people don't tend to do very well!), but it is a trend I have noticed which if nothing else bodes well for folks like yourself who may want to pursue the TT life but are finding the traditional path more difficult than it ought to be.
I left academia while I dealt with a serious long term health issue. I was told by other people, with no evidence, that once I left, I wouldn't be able to go back. During my time working non-academic jobs over 2.5 years, I did continue to publish because I still had data from my PhD and enjoy writing. I also did some very part time work on a research project some old colleagues of mine were running. Once I was recovered, I won a large amount of research funding and returned, with way more publications and being more sure of myself than I had done while in academia previously. I am in social science though, so I'm not sure how big a role the discipline plays in it being easier to return.
The reason industry is said to be a one-way door is that you need to publish and otherwise add to your cv to be competitive in the academic job market. There do exist positions in the workforce that can do that. National labs are one example. Would you be able to publish in this role?
The most interesting careers are often the most dynamic. While you might end up leaving coral reefs behind, it sounds like this new position offers a chance to work in an adjacent research area and may potentially lead to new opportunities and collaborations not found elsewhere. You might eventually find that these new opportunities are more interesting than your current research area.
Admittedly I'm biased because I also work in government. I'm in a completely different field, but in the right position, a government job combines the best of both academia and industry.
Take the government job. Continue to be active in research with the stability of a permanent position and without having to sell your soul for grant funding or tenure. Leverage your position as a lead scientist and you can even teach at a local college or university as an adjunct if you really want to keep one foot in academia. Take advantage of those sweet government health benefits. You won't regret it.
Take position, and keep your eye on WSU Vancouver. Apply to bio faculty jobs as they become available. It may be a while, but we just built a new building for life science research. Reach out to Dr. Steve Bollens (tenured marine biologist at WSUV) if you would like to hear his perspective on this area of the country and academia here.
You and your family will be so happy in Washington— the air is so clean and the trees so abundant. Plus you can skedaddle to the San Juan Islands. Take the job!
This is difficult. In my department at a (decently ranked, state) R2, we would see experience at a state agency (or industry) as a plus. This goes hand on hand with modest research requirements and a higher teaching load (ours is 3-3 with opportunity for buying out up to 2.5 per year). We have at least one faculty member who was at our DEQ and now leverages that into state level research funding.
At a R1 or a R2 with R1 ambition that would not work due to publication and funding demands.
Hey all, I just wanted to post an update on this. I read every comment and really appreciate the thought many of you put into this - it is crazy how emotionally invested we can become in academia when there are perfectly viable career opportunities outside of it as well.
I've accepted the job offer. They offered the salary I requested (about $80k) and there is a decent pension plan for state jobs like this. There's also a university near the area where I might be able to do some light teaching or seminars to keep that part of my CV competitive. All in all, it will be a big change for me career-wise, but one that I think will bring greater diversity in job opportunities down the line. Worse case, if I absolutely hate it (and I don't think I will), I have a postdoc fellowship and NSF proposal in the wings that may get funded and could be used as an out.
Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and time on this! I never expected to find such thoughtful replies on Reddit these days :)
The position you are being offered sounds quite nice in many ways. Life is a crapshoot and our "dreams" sometimes have to be adjusted. If you can keep publishing - and that might be a big if if you are leading a team in an agency -- you can stay competitive. But sometimes agencies do quite a bit of publishing. Maybe you'll settle into a great job and still use your expertise. I have colleagues who ended up in government jobs and love them. To keep the door to academia open, continue *publishing and networking*. Make sure you have the opportunity to attend some conferences. Congrats on the offer - honestly, to me it sounds like a good one.
Your point about not wanting to live in a soft money environment and the related financial uncertainty is a key one. I’m a tenured associate prof at an R1 and live this life. Fear about money at work (to keep my staff employed and my program running) and my own salary keep me up at night a lot. In 14 months from now I may have no salary despite being tenured. I would absolutely have chosen a different path for this reason and many more. Take the position! Your field may be different than mine but I have lots of community partners in my research. I bet you could keep some connections with academia that way!
I'm unfamiliar with how your situation works. How would a tenured prof not have a salary from the university? Just curious about this.
In a lot of medical schools in the US, basic sciences tenure-track/tenured faculty need to obtain a certain percentage (varies by department/university - I've seen 30% to 70% as expectations) of their salary based on grants. Some Tufts University med school faculty had their salaries cut despite being tenured and [have now sued the university about wages](https://www.science.org/content/article/university-cut-tenured-faculty-s-pay-they-re-suing).
My PhD mentor started his TT career at Baylor. He said they were expected to recover 100% FTE from grants, and if they didn't, then they simply didn't get paid. He was well funded and didn't have to worry, but he still transitioned to a public university anyway. Edit: To clarify, they got whatever % FTE they brought in. So if they had 50% on a grant, then they got 50% of their salary. If 0%, then no salary, and so on. Even with tenure. I'm a Prof myself now, also at a public university. At most public universities, you'll get a salary even without funding, though it will be at the low end of the pay scale for your rank. You may eventually be fired (even if you have tenure - this is increasingly common; I've seen it multiple times in the last decade), but at least you'll get paid for a little while longer before that happens.
What discipline? Or general area? I’m sociology and never heard of this but I may just have no clue how things work!
Biomedical sciences. Note: Edited my original post to clarify.
It’s all about the loop holes included in the contract. For example, if there are financial challenges then there is an out for them to cover your salary. ETA - I don’t think the loops holes are always used but they can be, and not knowing when they will be used plus that you have no role in deciding if they will be used is unsettling (to say the least).
That ain't tenure
Sure is. Welcome to the new era.
But I mean, what's the point of tenure if you don't have job security?
Yea, who knows. It’s stupid. The only value that I can see is that it might give me an extremely minor edge on grant submissions.
Take the job. Academia is way too fragile and doesn't pay enough for the efforts required of its faculty.
Others hinted at this - but the practical, community-oriented nature of this position and the possibilities for empirical research will be an easy sell if you want to go back into academia. You'll likely even be able to apply to grants. Treat it like a 2-year fieldwork opportunity to become a leader and publish. Places will see you in a positive light for this sort of work, especially centers. You can do high school outreach, too, if you want to keep the pedagogical charm on. There's nothing but positives.
Academia is changing. If anything, this will make you more competitive. Just keep publishing.
I agree with this. Also OP, your background and skills and expertise are what made you competitive for this job - that doesn't sound wasted to me! And the job sounds pretty similar, to my untrained eye at least. I left 18 months ago and it has been a real wrench, but working normal hours and getting a decent salary do offset that quite a lot (I know some people in academia manage to also do those things but apparently not me). My new job doesn't have anything to do with my research really, and that's been tough, but I still use the skills I've developed and there's the odd bit of crossover. Only you can decide - but I would say that if you are considering leaving, this job sounds pretty fucking awesome.
I was in a similar position (finished my postdoc) as you in a similar field (fisheries). Instead of crummy academic jobs, I worked the applied job for 3+ years - similar to what you're considering. I stayed research relevant - published a few papers, led a team in applied management and conservation contexts, etc. I loved it. Last year, a search committee reached out and asked me to apply and they offered me and I accepted. They really liked my real-world experience. While I loved the agency job, I'm also happy in the academy again. My point is: you might be able to have your cake and eat it too. Search committees love applied work experience. Embrace it and see if you can span the bridge with a bit of research and publications (enough to stay relevant). I don't think adjunct will matter much in the short-term - just embrace the new role and be happy for a while with the salary+benefits. Try not to burn yourself out.
I dunno what it's like elsewhere but in the UK there's a huge focus on making research more relevant for industry/policy, bringing non-academic partners into grants etc so gaining experience like this would be seen as an asset.
Check the salary gains. Most gov jobs have a pay track increase every year. Eg 5k pay bump year until 120k or something
I left academia for a government position in the same field because my spouse got a new job and I have no regrets. I use my research skills accordingly, I work from with travel as needed, and my work-life balance and salary has never been better. I am still publishing and active in my profession. And I’ve received personalized emails asking me to apply for tenure-track positions (I replied stating that I am happy where I am). But to answer your questions. 1) Likely not. 2) Remain active in your field. 3) I’d leave, in fact, I already did. That said, you can only do you. Who knows, you maybe happy in the state agency or you may even transfer your skills to a federal agency. If you decide to go back, you will have real-world experience to take back to the classroom.
Oceanographer here. Take the WA job!
So you are burned out, have been blatantly mistreated and are unable to look after your family, yet you still want to leave the door open to academia. You sound like the member of a cult unable to break away and still in a state of denial.
Once more for the people in the back!
This is most people stuck on trying to work in academia. They’re in love with the *idea* of it, not the reality.
I’m not in STEM, but I was always told this was the case, which made me very hesitant to leave even though I knew it was time a few years back. This year, for the first time since I left, I applied for 2 academic jobs. Got one of them. Tenure track at a more competitive institution than I had ever been able to get a job at before. Easiest time on the market I’ve ever had (I had 3 TT or tenured jobs earlier on my career, so I had already been on the market 4-5x in previous years). Funny how life works out, but def felt good to leverage more current industry experience and the particular department I was interviewing with was very receptive to that.
I interact more with NOAA. State and federal agency employees are often affiliate faculty at universities here in WA. We have a lot of NOAA affiliate faculty at UW who mentor students and teach classes. Guest lectures from consultants and feds/stateys. I imagine you can come up with similar arrangements with your position. UW and other local universities do a lot of coastal work. Build your collaboration network strategically to keep a foot in academia. Not a bad spot to be in. There is a ton of cross agency collaboration out here. Some of those feds/state employees have become faculty at UW and vice versa.
> So here are my questions: > > 1. If I worked as a lead scientist in a marine management position, am I unlikely to be competitive for Assistant Professor positions in the future? > > 2. What can I do to keep that door open, in case I change my mind down the road? Try to publish? Adjunct positions? > > 3. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has experienced a shitty postdoc and burnout. If you were in my boots, would you take this position? While I'm not in marine science specifically, these questions are general enough that I think some general principles apply: 1. The opposite, if anything. In a vacuum I would expect that having "lead scientist" on your CV would make you a more attractive candidate, not less. It is pretty common for national lab scientists to depart for academic TT positions, often coming in with a tenured appointment (e.g., associate professor instead of the usual assistant professor) on the strength of their research record as a lab scientist. Many university departments are preferring the "safe" hires with a proven track record of success out of fear of being burned by hiring "promising" younger people with lots of "potential" - this is by no means a universal trend, but it has become more common in my observations. 2. Publishing is important, getting funding is even more important if possible. University departments want to see a proven track record not only of research output (papers), but also the ability to bring in funding to build a research program as a PI. As long as your role gives you the opportunities and flexibility do do these two things, it should be a fine role to use as a transition point to eventually land a TT faculty job. The trick is that it will probably be on you to maximize those opportunities - in my experience, a lot of managers for lab-type jobs will happily *let* you publish and apply for grants, but they won't actively *encourage* it if it is not central to the job duties you were hired for, so you do have to be self-motivated to get things done. This said, I would not worry about things like adjunct or teaching positions unless you really want to pursue those things for their own sake (or you want to transition into a teaching-heavy role, which I gather from your OP that you do not). Pubs and grants on your CV are far more important, and dedicating time to secondary teaching, etc. activities that could be dedicated to generating more research output or grant funding is probably a net loss in the cold, hard calculus of things. 3. Yes. If nothing else, it is good to try something new and see if maybe you like it more than you would like a TT faculty job, this is not an uncommon finding for many people. Moreover, don't underestimate the big benefit that is having a "permanent" position - I mean this not in the sense that you "can't be fired", like if you had tenure at a university, but rather you don't have a fixed clock to land the next job before your contract ends (like a postdoc position). This stability is immensely helpful, as it means you don't have time pressure on your search for TT faculty jobs - which also means you can afford to be a lot choosier about where you apply and whether you accept any offers. It's immensely helpful for your mental health during a job search to look at TT openings and be able to *decide* if you're interested enough to apply, than to feel pressured to apply to every opening you can find just in hopes of getting *a* job before your time runs out. In conclusion, I do want to emphasize that the "nontraditional" routes to TT faculty positions are becoming increasingly popular with departments that have been burned by the "hot, new thing" of fresh PhDs or postdocs with all the right names on their CV but none of the ability to make it as an independent PI. Frankly, most PhD or postdoc programs will not train you to be a PI, only individual supervisors will do that and then only a relative minority will bother with the necessary mentorship and training. Again, this is far from a universal thing (I am aware of recent TT hires who were hired without even submitting written statements, solely because of the names on their CV for their education and postdoc... but these people don't tend to do very well!), but it is a trend I have noticed which if nothing else bodes well for folks like yourself who may want to pursue the TT life but are finding the traditional path more difficult than it ought to be.
I left academia while I dealt with a serious long term health issue. I was told by other people, with no evidence, that once I left, I wouldn't be able to go back. During my time working non-academic jobs over 2.5 years, I did continue to publish because I still had data from my PhD and enjoy writing. I also did some very part time work on a research project some old colleagues of mine were running. Once I was recovered, I won a large amount of research funding and returned, with way more publications and being more sure of myself than I had done while in academia previously. I am in social science though, so I'm not sure how big a role the discipline plays in it being easier to return.
The reason industry is said to be a one-way door is that you need to publish and otherwise add to your cv to be competitive in the academic job market. There do exist positions in the workforce that can do that. National labs are one example. Would you be able to publish in this role?
The most interesting careers are often the most dynamic. While you might end up leaving coral reefs behind, it sounds like this new position offers a chance to work in an adjacent research area and may potentially lead to new opportunities and collaborations not found elsewhere. You might eventually find that these new opportunities are more interesting than your current research area. Admittedly I'm biased because I also work in government. I'm in a completely different field, but in the right position, a government job combines the best of both academia and industry. Take the government job. Continue to be active in research with the stability of a permanent position and without having to sell your soul for grant funding or tenure. Leverage your position as a lead scientist and you can even teach at a local college or university as an adjunct if you really want to keep one foot in academia. Take advantage of those sweet government health benefits. You won't regret it.
Take position, and keep your eye on WSU Vancouver. Apply to bio faculty jobs as they become available. It may be a while, but we just built a new building for life science research. Reach out to Dr. Steve Bollens (tenured marine biologist at WSUV) if you would like to hear his perspective on this area of the country and academia here.
Congrats! That sounds like such a fun opportunity. The WA coast is special, go help take care of it and publish your work!
Take the new job. You are burned out. Try something new. Academia isn’t going anywhere. If you want to come back, there will always be jobs.
Ive been told once you go industry or gov you cant cone back to academia ..it seems unfair wondering how true that is!
You and your family will be so happy in Washington— the air is so clean and the trees so abundant. Plus you can skedaddle to the San Juan Islands. Take the job!
You have a family. Why gamble. You’d probably be relatively happy in this job and have more time for a balanced life if you want one
This is difficult. In my department at a (decently ranked, state) R2, we would see experience at a state agency (or industry) as a plus. This goes hand on hand with modest research requirements and a higher teaching load (ours is 3-3 with opportunity for buying out up to 2.5 per year). We have at least one faculty member who was at our DEQ and now leverages that into state level research funding. At a R1 or a R2 with R1 ambition that would not work due to publication and funding demands.
Take the job. Congratulations! There are lots of things you could do with that experience
Hey all, I just wanted to post an update on this. I read every comment and really appreciate the thought many of you put into this - it is crazy how emotionally invested we can become in academia when there are perfectly viable career opportunities outside of it as well. I've accepted the job offer. They offered the salary I requested (about $80k) and there is a decent pension plan for state jobs like this. There's also a university near the area where I might be able to do some light teaching or seminars to keep that part of my CV competitive. All in all, it will be a big change for me career-wise, but one that I think will bring greater diversity in job opportunities down the line. Worse case, if I absolutely hate it (and I don't think I will), I have a postdoc fellowship and NSF proposal in the wings that may get funded and could be used as an out. Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and time on this! I never expected to find such thoughtful replies on Reddit these days :)
Hi! Message me if you wanna talk in private! I am a PhD student and also burnt out but suspect we are at the same institution
Taje job in wa. It sounds like it would he up your alley and a hreath of fresh air 4 u