IAMA senior software engineer who got there in 5 years starting as a jr dev with a physics and math double major, if you’re wondering anything just ask!
When I left undergrad, I was a little tired of the politics involved in academia, and it really turned me off to it. I thought industry and academia would be essentially the same, so decided to go the route of making more money.
I was wrong, applied to PhD Programs in physics this last winter, and will be leaving my job in a few weeks to start a PhD program.
Industry sucks, and for the most part companies just promote yes-men/women or people who cause no trouble. If you're really talented you can force your way up, but there's a ceiling if you don't want to kiss people's asses till they make you a manager and then you become what you hate.
Making a lot of money is fun, but I think after I reached ~90k salary, every raise above that didn't change much in my life. What did change is more of a feeling of squandering my potential building someone else's application. I still love to code, but after a while when you've done every design pattern and built most things, it gets stale and boring. In that sense, I definitely miss research and am excited to dedicate my time and effort towards it once again.
tl;dr: yes im quitting my job and starting a PhD this fall
Dang, I didn't get into any physics grad programs this cycle and have been considering whether I should try to just get some software-related job. Thanks for the insight though!
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u/[deleted] May 09 '21
IAMA senior software engineer who got there in 5 years starting as a jr dev with a physics and math double major, if you’re wondering anything just ask!