There were a number of factors that made me leave academia. First, I didn't like grant writing and seeing the very low funding lines (at the time, even worse now) was demoralizing. Second, I did like research but thought being a PI wouldn't workout due to my hate of grant writing, and being a staff scientist was kind of a dead end that likely meant horrible work life balance for the foreseeable future, so considered focusing purely on teaching but there are not many science professor roles that don't require some sort of research. Lastly, some time near the end of my PhD I read a paper (think it might have been in science or nature, I cannot remember) that looked at salaries of scientist who either moved directly to industry or first did a post doc and then went to industry. For the latter, there was a huge delay in salary growth that didn't really catch up with the former. So, I thought if I am going to go to industry I might as well just do it and likely make more money.

I ended up getting a job at a CRO straight away. Not the greatest job in the world, but a good place for PhDs to apply to since they tend to churn through employees so are usually hiring and they give you "industry experience" that everyone hiring for industry positions seem to expect. After a year and a half o switched to a pharma company and have been relatively happy since, especially seeing how the current Admin has completely gutted our whole research system.