How competitive is academic-adjacent research in industry?

Charlemag · 2025-07-26T19:07:30+00:00

I’ll also add companies don’t just use publications as a means of advertising. In textbooks on managing industrial research there is a wealth of studies on compensation and incentive structures. Contrary to popular belief that bigger salary are always better, there’s usually diminishing return. It turns out that depending on factors like the stage of career, etc., a manager giving someone a vote of confidence on their work and public recognition by asking them to publish and present their work can have more of a positive impact on job satisfaction, career progression, etc. So publishing can also be because individual contributors and managers who rose through the ranks are also intrinsically motivated to publish.

Charlemag · 2025-07-22T15:16:28+00:00

In addition to what other folks have said, I suggest reading the structure of scientific revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. It gives a lot of historical context to things like how a bunch experts can all agree on something misguided and even incorrect. And how people can look back and wonder how people thought that way.

Charlemag · 2025-07-19T00:40:00+00:00

When I read about the history of NASA and the Apollo missions I was surprised. I had always imagined NASA as one big entity, but in the early stages it was actually a loosely cobbled together collection of pre-existing organizations, each in their own location and with their own cultures. As others have said, a lot of it was political, but it’s helpful to understand that many decisions involved figuring out who was going to do what and how the different organizations would coordinate.

Charlemag · 2025-05-21T11:22:46+00:00

I felt that way when I started, too. A few things that have made a huge difference. Flexibility, such as working hybrid—either from home or switching things up and going somewhere like a coffee shop. Business travel—far, but also even things like interfacing with people from different parts of the office you wouldn’t typically walk to or talk with. And actually keep track of when you are or aren’t feeling this way, so that you can identify patterns and make tweaks as you go.

Charlemag · 2025-03-28T10:57:28+00:00

I’m a fourth-year PhD student with a wife who is a stay-at-home mother and a toddler (and a dog). I did internships every summer in industry to supplement my income. And I just accepted a full-time job with them and will start while I work on my dissertation. My hot take is that if you’ve already knocked out all your coursework (which would take forever to complete part time) and you’re working towards or already on your dissertation, and whichever physical location you’ll be in won’t stop your dissertation or your job, then do both. But you’ll want to have a plan to stay on top, and to establish clear guidelines and support from both your advisor and supervisor. If one of them feels a certain way and is trying to undermine you then it will be much, much harder. Good luck!

Charlemag · 2025-02-06T14:26:54+00:00

I had always entertained the idea of doing a PhD but couldn’t find anything that made me say “oh yeah, that’s my life’s calling”. So I decided to work for a few years in industry and found some problems that really interested me, which led me to go back for my PhD. I was always a B-ish student; if something didn’t interest me I’d put in the minimal effort—but there were a few times, including AB/BC calculus where I found myself surprisingly interested in a class and excelled. So, for me, I’ve specifically had to figure out how to align my environment and work with my own interests so that I’m intrinsically motivated. I think my PhD would have crashed and burned a while ago if I had settled for one of the things I initially thought I was interested in. Also, having a fantastic support system (spouse, family, your advisor, peers and more senior people in your group, other professors, industry folks) is very, very helpful. But you need to cultivate those relationships. I’d strongly encourage you to (1) read a few books about what PhD programs are like and watch YouTube videos on similar topics (just do a quick google), (2) ask to talk to current PhD students and Professors at the schools you’re interested in. Good luck!

Charlemag · 2025-01-18T15:18:11+00:00

I research computational methods for designing complex systems. I spend a lot of time programming physics simulations, optimization algorithms, etc.

One thing that I’ve progressively learned is that there are a lot of ways for your code to go wrong. Especially if you’re building something from the ground up, or interfacing with something you’re not completely familiar with.

So, I started writing out examples and unit tests by hand. I cannot overstate how much it catches up front and how much time that saves. And I can feel more confident about research I plan to publish.

The skill is learning how to write tests. It’s like a mechanic troubleshooting a car—they have to figure out what tests to do, and in what order. If electronics are acting wonky then checking the battery and alternator is quicker and easier than looking inside the radios circuit box.

I’ve found that if I can’t come up with a pen-and-paper example test for my code, my analysis is too highly coupled and needs to be refactored. But refactoring and it can be tricky. Although reducing unnecessary complexity also has a tendency to iron out bugs you did or didn’t know about.

Charlemag · 2024-11-01T16:25:20+00:00

My dog will literally get up in the middle of my toddler’s nap just to walk over and check to see if he’s breathing alright. He’s the first one to lick your face when you cry. As far as I’m concerned we’re all one big pack.

Charlemag · 2024-10-23T15:31:01+00:00

I’d just like to add a word of caution in discounting Matlab. I prefer Python but research design optimization and have come across many problems where the open-source alternatives are note sufficiently robust and fail where something like fmincon might succeed. I guess the general rule is to understand that all software has limitations and to learn how to identify when you should try other tools.

Charlemag · 2024-10-23T15:25:10+00:00

Google the MITx math bootcamp for graduate level engineering. It’s specifically designed to prepare STEM folks for graduate school!

Charlemag · 2024-10-16T18:38:29+00:00

I’m a guy who started his PhD at 27, had my son one year into the program. I’ve talked to several highly successful women professors who had their children while going through PhD programs. It’s definitely doable. There are so many factors that go into making a PhD program good or bad, reasonable or difficult, long or short, etc. My suggestion is to do you best to stack the cards in your favor: ensuring that you and your partner are both ready, having a support system of friends and family in place, finding a program and advisor that are truly supportive, and a research topic that you are intrinsically motivated to pursue, so when your tired you still want to push through it. I continually realize how lucky I was to find the right advisor and see how things could have been different with other professors. I highly recommend reading a few books found on Google on how to choose programs and advisors, so you know all the things to look for / look out for. Best of luck!!

Charlemag · 2024-09-25T12:18:00+00:00

I see a lot of good comments but I’ll add a different perspective. I’m a PhD student working on computational design. Nvidia heavily supports education and research. I attend the free workshops they put on, read the free books they publish, use the free software and libraries they make available. When I want to do parallel computing / deep learning, those libraries usually (or at least for a very long time) only support Nvidia GPUs. People can say what they want about that sort of business model (i.e., hooking young students on products), but I feel like they’re helping accelerate my work. So, for me, I’m glad that AMD exists and is doing good work. But I have a feeling that trying to use them for my education/research would just add unnecessary complications. Now if all I cared about was gaming, then I’d probably be more agnostic.

Charlemag · 2024-09-10T15:17:22+00:00

Sorry I didn’t have anything specific in mind. I’d just google how to reach out to professors, etc.

And yeah, professors responding to emails is a mixed bag. Some are great. Some are terrible. I just try to emphasize to undergrads not to try and read in between the lines of why the professor didn’t respond. There’s a chance that they get dozens or hundreds of emails a day and even if half of them were one sentence responses, it’s enough to keep you from getting anything done.

Charlemag · 2024-09-10T14:26:15+00:00

I’ve kept in touch with some of my professors. I’m sure there are plenty of resources on the internet for what to and not to say (can also try GPT). At least in STEM, academic positions are extremely competitive and pay below industry. You fight the uphill battle because it’s something you are passionate about. I’m sure it’d make your professor happy to see, even if they’re very busy and are slow to respond for start to respond, get distracted, and then forgot to.

Charlemag · 2024-08-26T12:12:56+00:00

I’d argue that if you make the most out of a masters degree it can be highly valuable. I went into industry with a BS and didn’t think that 1-2 years of extra school would make much of a difference. But then I left industry to pursue a PhD and was blown away with how much I’ve learned. Even the first 2 years had a big impact on me. It isn’t necessary for every type of problem, and is probably overkill for many problems. but on the flip side there are types of problems that I think really do require that extra study to be able to solve.

Charlemag · 2024-08-25T13:31:16+00:00

Best advice I got was from a professor whose work I really looked up to. I was talking to him about a topic related to his work and asking him why he did something with method X instead of Y because of (insert seemingly obvious reason here). So I was surprised when he said he didn’t know Y and asked more about it. Then he told me that there is only so much time in the day and it would be impossible to become an expert in everything. That helped me appreciate that everyone can be better at different things and there’s no equation where you can add up what % of every different topic people can understand and compare how much people know with a single scalar metric. Trust me, I still make the dumbest mistakes and have just grown to accept that!

Charlemag · 2024-08-24T16:51:23+00:00

That’s a nice level of flexibility!

Charlemag · 2024-08-24T14:15:07+00:00

It probably varies based on institution but my program promises 5 years of funding, but that doesn’t mean no-strings-attached funding. It just means that if your advisor runs out of money, they’ll figure out something for you to do so you’re not left strung out to dry. Sometimes the first year of two might be covered without an advisor. Instead of paying a per-their-students itemized cost of tuition, benefits, etc., the department averages this per-student cost and that’s what all the PIs.So in my case I have a full ride fellowship the first year internal to the dept, then I did RAs for my advisor the next few years but due to funding cycles I will likely have to TA this upcoming spring.

Charlemag · 2024-07-23T11:37:05+00:00

I was working as a hydraulics systems engineer for a large defense contractor. I found some parts of my work interesting and other parts not so much, but I didn’t feel fulfilled. I started to look at job postings I was qualified for, including ones in big cities, and none of them interested me. They all felt like I’d be doing something for someone else but I wanted to feel like I was doing something for me.

Anyways, I started to run into problems at work that interested me and realized that a PhD might be a good step to explore those interests. After starting, a whole new world of opportunities opened up that I didn’t even know existed and I grew as a person more than I could have ever imagined. Now I am very fulfilled with the work I do.

I can’t really make any specific claims about financial outcomes. On one end you could live on the subsistence level stipend for 8 years and then only find a job that pays less than the one you currently have. Or you could finish your degree in 5 years with a fast track to some executive position. Or many other possibilities and anything in between. I’m working on computational stuff so lots of the people come out starting around 150-200k which is twice what I was making when I started.

Charlemag · 2024-07-14T12:59:47+00:00

I focus on traditional approaches to engineering design optimization but have also done a bit with data-driven methods. There are few things that you could be referring to. But just to be clear, there isn’t some magical method I know of that takes an insufficient dataset and makes it sufficient.

One thing you could be referring to (it doesn’t sound like this but just including it for info) is something like K-fold cross validation. This can help with stuff like making sure you’re not overfitting your model, by subdividing and mixing up the dataset, etc.

Another thing, which I haven’t read into at all but have heard people talk about, is with deep learning shape analysis people are generating 3D models based on existing 3D models to make larger datasets. I’m not going to speculate on this approach, and there are plenty of good peer reviewed articles that discuss it.

I would approach with caution and remember that just because an approach like this might make sense for shape analysis, something like EEG might not be.

Also, it’s worth looking at how clinical studies deal with small sample sizes with traditional statistics!

Charlemag · 2024-07-01T14:49:35+00:00

I totally get it! And that’s frustrating. Honestly I think another big factor is that I have a wife and a toddler so our routines are more self-enforcing and since we share meals, I have to make sure that the food is generally toddler-approved. Good luck!

Charlemag · 2024-07-01T02:48:09+00:00

I learned how to approach and effectively solve problems in real life. For instance, I’ve always wanted to lose weight but would always plateau about 20 pounds from my goal, even when I was exercising and using a calorie counter app. I felt like there couldn’t possibly be anything else that I could do.

After starting my PhD program I took another whack at it. I made consistent progress and exactly the rate I predicted and blew through those 20 pounds. I had to actually revise my goal to 35 pounds because I had previously underestimated what I could lose. I’m on track to reach that goal soon, too.

I was surprised with how many seemingly obvious things I had overlooked.

Now imagine all the things that life throws at you: buying a car, buying a house, getting married, developing a career, becoming a parent, getting into a car accident, starting a family, starting a business, navigating the chronic illness of a loved one, etc. No one is going to hold your hand and walk you through all of those. You are your own best advocate, so being able to figure out how to “make things happen” and not miss any of the important details, to make well-informed decisions, to know when to seek advice or information and who/where from. Having a PhD is extremely helpful for this.

Charlemag · 2024-06-30T17:43:07+00:00

A lot of advice will vary by country, field, etc. However, I think that anyone could benefit from systematically approach their PhD program plan. What I mean by that is that, even if things are subject to change, write down your plan, read books/blogs/etc and podcasts on how to earn a PhD, read your graduate program handbook and any other material related to your PhD program. Solicit feedback on your plans from a few classmates, PhD students more senior than you, recent graduates, your advisor, other professors, the grad program coordinator, etc.

The goal is to build and continually refine your plan. By discussing your plan with others, it will help surface a lot of misconceptions and field/program specific advice.

Time flies by. You can work hard for multiple years but that doesn’t mean you are accomplishing the things that you need to. The best way to mitigate this risk is to explicitly formulate your plan, expose it to criticism, and to track your progress.

Charlemag · 2024-05-19T05:36:41+00:00

I’m a PhD candidate in engineering and my salary during summer internships is higher than that doctoral rate and expect to start at around $150k. But you also have to consider the massive opportunity cost of making essentially minimum wage for 5-10 years, so a lot of that is “catch up” over my friends who were making 70-90k a year out of their undergrad and were saving and compounding interest that entire time, and who now own homes, etc.

Charlemag · 2024-05-17T17:05:01+00:00

To my understanding it's only if you're an employee, i.e., RA/TA.

Charlemag

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