4 ms·

I left academia for a software company, not midway my career but at the early start. The decision is easy when you have mouths to feed, wages don’t keep up, an

I left academia for a software company, not midway my career but at the early start. The decision is easy when you have mouths to feed, wages don’t keep up, and I can earn double my salary doing the fun part of my work (ML+optimization+data/energy modelling in civil engineering space) literally the next day. I was working with all kinds of companies to help them get started with this kind of work. Instead of sending my students I just leapt and it’s been a tremendous experience. If I return I will be a better professor, however not publishing for a couple of years may kill that dream. Right now, it’s a great feeling not to have to worry about food and I can actually focus more on doing my job better. I feel bad about leaving my group, but they can find someone more hungry than me that wants it more.

samvher 4y ago
What you mention as “the fun part” does sound pretty interesting. Sounds like you’re contracting/consulting? Any advice on finding assignments in the field? (For someone with a DS + non-civil engineering background)
- dagw 4y ago
  I worked in civil engineering up until 6 month ago and every civil engineering company I know is desperate to hire people that know ML/simulation/modeling etc. Civil Engineering is seen as a deeply unsexy field compared to other tech industries and they're having a hard time recruiting.
  - dc-programmer 4y ago
    Are non-PE’s treated as first class citizens? Also is there room for developers to grow in an engineering firm. It sounds interesting in a concrete way (pun intended), but it seems similar to working for a research university in that you are viewed as more of a laborer as mentioned in a recent post
    - dagw 4y ago
      It's getting a lot better on all those fronts, but there is still work to be done. When I started we where much more seen as support and assistants that could occasionally be called on help out the Real Engineers on the Real Projects. When I left my last company, there was an actual Data Science department with its own projects, management structure and place in the org chart. I was a Senior Specialist Engineer in Data Science when I left with exactly the same 'rank' and pay grade as any other Senior Specialist Engineer. The biggest problem was that the higher ups in the organisation still had a very fuzzy idea on how/when/why to actually deploy ML/data science etc. in projects, but at least they where aware of this shortcoming and working to address it. You are going to have to 'sell' yourself and your skills and spend time convincing people that you bring real bottom line value to projects, and there is still scepticism among the old guard that data science can bring anything of value that you will have to overcome. On the plus side I found lots of opportunities to get involved in all kinds of varying projects from crowd simulation to using ML to create predictive geotechnical models. Since no one really knows the best way to use these new tools within civil engineering I found a lot of room for doing essentially R&D. I also found that civil engineers seem to have a much more sane view on work-life balance compared to software engineers and so the work hours and levels of work where much more reasonable than I've seen in many software companies. The flip side to this is that the pay is on the whole lower compared to software companies.
      - dc-programmer 4y ago
        Really appreciate the detailed answer. Hope the new gig is working out
xtracto 4y ago
I left academia after 8 years (4 PhD, 4 Postdoc) to go into a startup (non US). For me, I was disillusioned with what being in academia meant: Publish or Perish meant publishing whatever crap mid-work you had for the sake of putting something out. At the time I was also a blind-reviewer in a couple of publications, and the amount of trash papers that arrived due to the same issue was astounding (and no, I didn't get paid to do that). I would love to do research and science, but I just hate the current status of that "industry". And this is considering that I traded a "comfortable" life in Germany, with all the great social safeties in there (I didn't have a problem with the language) for a Mexican based startup with very high risk. And the pay was even not that different. After 10 years of my decision, I can say I took the best path, given that it took me to work in other startups that have been doing amazingly well and for which I've got some good amount of stocks.

samvher 4y ago

What you mention as “the fun part” does sound pretty interesting. Sounds like you’re contracting/consulting? Any advice on finding assignments in the field? (For someone with a DS + non-civil engineering background)

dagw 4y ago
I worked in civil engineering up until 6 month ago and every civil engineering company I know is desperate to hire people that know ML/simulation/modeling etc. Civil Engineering is seen as a deeply unsexy field compared to other tech industries and they're having a hard time recruiting.
- dc-programmer 4y ago
  Are non-PE’s treated as first class citizens? Also is there room for developers to grow in an engineering firm. It sounds interesting in a concrete way (pun intended), but it seems similar to working for a research university in that you are viewed as more of a laborer as mentioned in a recent post
  - dagw 4y ago
    It's getting a lot better on all those fronts, but there is still work to be done. When I started we where much more seen as support and assistants that could occasionally be called on help out the Real Engineers on the Real Projects. When I left my last company, there was an actual Data Science department with its own projects, management structure and place in the org chart. I was a Senior Specialist Engineer in Data Science when I left with exactly the same 'rank' and pay grade as any other Senior Specialist Engineer. The biggest problem was that the higher ups in the organisation still had a very fuzzy idea on how/when/why to actually deploy ML/data science etc. in projects, but at least they where aware of this shortcoming and working to address it. You are going to have to 'sell' yourself and your skills and spend time convincing people that you bring real bottom line value to projects, and there is still scepticism among the old guard that data science can bring anything of value that you will have to overcome. On the plus side I found lots of opportunities to get involved in all kinds of varying projects from crowd simulation to using ML to create predictive geotechnical models. Since no one really knows the best way to use these new tools within civil engineering I found a lot of room for doing essentially R&D. I also found that civil engineers seem to have a much more sane view on work-life balance compared to software engineers and so the work hours and levels of work where much more reasonable than I've seen in many software companies. The flip side to this is that the pay is on the whole lower compared to software companies.
    - dc-programmer 4y ago
      Really appreciate the detailed answer. Hope the new gig is working out

xtracto 4y ago

I left academia after 8 years (4 PhD, 4 Postdoc) to go into a startup (non US). For me, I was disillusioned with what being in academia meant: Publish or Perish meant publishing whatever crap mid-work you had for the sake of putting something out. At the time I was also a blind-reviewer in a couple of publications, and the amount of trash papers that arrived due to the same issue was astounding (and no, I didn't get paid to do that). I would love to do research and science, but I just hate the current status of that "industry". And this is considering that I traded a "comfortable" life in Germany, with all the great social safeties in there (I didn't have a problem with the language) for a Mexican based startup with very high risk. And the pay was even not that different. After 10 years of my decision, I can say I took the best path, given that it took me to work in other startups that have been doing amazingly well and for which I've got some good amount of stocks.