Advice to Young Scientists Series #1
How to Be Happy In an Industrial Research Job

There is one recur­ring con­ver­sa­tion I have had with sci­en­tists that clearly indi­cates the biggest source of job dis­sat­is­fac­tion for many PhDs work­ing in indus­trial research posi­tions. The con­ver­sa­tion often occurs right after I have had to redi­rect an individual’s assign­ment to a dif­fer­ent research effort because of chang­ing busi­ness require­ments. It gen­er­ally does not occur if the new assign­ment is in a tech­ni­cal area that is very close to one that the indi­vid­ual had been work­ing. It never occurs if the new assign­ment is in a tech­ni­cal area that is very close to one in which the indi­vid­ual com­pleted their PhD. The issue arises for some when they are asked to move to a new tech­ni­cal area. We would not ask them to sud­denly change from micro­bi­ol­ogy to astro­physics. But, it is com­mon to ask a PhD in indus­try to branch into related areas.

The worst response I hear is, “I didn’t go to school for 9 years^{â€Â} to be flib­bergib­berist to do this…”. Come on, you were not hired because you were a flib­bergib­berist! You were hired because you have a very solid gen­eral capa­bil­ity in a tech­ni­cal field that your employer needs, you have proven you can learn new things, and you have proven you can com­mu­ni­cate (a least some­one thought you could since your dis­ser­ta­tion and defense got through a review). In other words, your abil­ity to help on any new prob­lem in a gen­eral tech­ni­cal area is your worth to your employer. They do not give a shit that you are a flib­bergib­berist. They want you to solve prob­lems. If you do not solve prob­lems you are worth­less to them.

So here is the advice:

Find enjoy­ment in solv­ing the problem

not in the prob­lem you solve.

I know it sounds sim­ple. But, unlike most early aca­d­e­mic careers where you make your name by becom­ing an expert on one topic, in indus­try you make you name by being the per­son that can be counted on to help no mat­ter what the prob­lem. If you like to solve prob­lems, you will find your indus­trial career not only reward­ing but enjoy­able too.

Is Still Here

I am assum­ing that you some­how man­aged to avoid par­ty­ing too much (yes you Greeks out there, sci­ence under­grads party) and were able to actu­ally sched­ule the right classes dur­ing the right terms and did not have to work too many jobs so you were able to fin­ish under­grad­u­ate school in four years (a rare occur­rence these days ). Fur­ther, I am assum­ing you were as lucky as I was and landed a full Research Fel­low­ship for grad­u­ate school and that you were pushy enough (also like me) to force you advi­sor to let you fin­ish in five years (it was not beyond me to sug­gest mildly-veiled threats, and besides, I had pub­lished most of the work already, so there!).