New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Should I leave my job at a FAANG to pursue a PhD?
Ask HN: Should I leave my job at a FAANG to pursue a PhD?
2 by YesMilord | 1 comments on Hacker News.
Hello HN, Tldr. Should I leave my comfortable first job at a FAANG for a PhD if I'm passionate for teaching and doing research? What was your experience? Last May I started working in a FAANG in western Europe as my first job out of university. Considering the fact that I'm from southeast Europe, the salary and working conditions are amazing, especially for a first job. There's also a lot of promises for career development. At 24, I have the financial freedom to do whatever I want, disregarding covid 19. I have this itch however which is telling me that this is not what I want after all. Just before getting this job, I was doing my diploma thesis on a framework for creating thread-safe trees. I absolutely adored the process of research and creating something new for the sake of showing that it can be done. Throughout the process, I had to also make presentations of my ideas and concepts to people of different backgrounds, coming very close to teaching and I also felt extremely content while doing it. In general, it felt like an academic career is my calling. Unfortunately, having heard a lot about the working conditions in PhDs and how hard they can be if there's a bad relationship with a supervisor, I decided to take the opportunity of getting a good job instead of a PhD in parallel systems. I feel like I'm in a 'the grass is always greener on the other side' situation and I would like some opinions from people who actually did a PhD to get a feel of what it's like. Did you have the opportunity to create something of your own? Was it easy to actually get a teaching position afterwards? Was the investment in years worth it after all?
2 by YesMilord | 1 comments on Hacker News.
Hello HN, Tldr. Should I leave my comfortable first job at a FAANG for a PhD if I'm passionate for teaching and doing research? What was your experience? Last May I started working in a FAANG in western Europe as my first job out of university. Considering the fact that I'm from southeast Europe, the salary and working conditions are amazing, especially for a first job. There's also a lot of promises for career development. At 24, I have the financial freedom to do whatever I want, disregarding covid 19. I have this itch however which is telling me that this is not what I want after all. Just before getting this job, I was doing my diploma thesis on a framework for creating thread-safe trees. I absolutely adored the process of research and creating something new for the sake of showing that it can be done. Throughout the process, I had to also make presentations of my ideas and concepts to people of different backgrounds, coming very close to teaching and I also felt extremely content while doing it. In general, it felt like an academic career is my calling. Unfortunately, having heard a lot about the working conditions in PhDs and how hard they can be if there's a bad relationship with a supervisor, I decided to take the opportunity of getting a good job instead of a PhD in parallel systems. I feel like I'm in a 'the grass is always greener on the other side' situation and I would like some opinions from people who actually did a PhD to get a feel of what it's like. Did you have the opportunity to create something of your own? Was it easy to actually get a teaching position afterwards? Was the investment in years worth it after all?
