> a "scum of the earth" post doc for 1/5th the salary and double the hours required as a junior python developer role
Where do you get these numbers from? This is not at all like that in Europe. A postdoc gets (say, in France) 30k per year, doing a calm, interesting job and paid travel to a couple of conferences per year, with almost total freedom to choose their daily schedule. This is not a high salary, but it is certainly livable and quite above the median of the country. A 150k salary is nearly out of reach for even quite senior developers, and nonsensical for "junior python developer roles".
I'm a PhD student in CS in the USA. At my school in Boston, we are paid a ~40K USD/yr stipend. My friends in industry make a _minimum_ of 120k/yr, and some make considerably more than that (think 200k+), in junior / "entry-level" positions.
When I complete the PhD, if I go to industry in the USA, my income will probably be similar to that of my friends who will have been in industry the entire time (and gotten steady wage increases throughout).
It's important to note also cost of living. 40k/yr might sound like a lot, but in Boston, rent is >1k/month even with roommates, we don't have dental care, our health insurance is imperfect, groceries are expensive, etc. etc. Meanwhile in Tucson Arizona or Bloomington Indiana the stipend is something like 22-28K/yr, as cost of living is lower.
Generally speaking it's reasonable to say that completing a PhD in computer science is not a financial investment, but rather, something I am doing because I want to do it. I am very unlikely to literally "profit" (compared to, if I had gone straight to industry instead).
A friend of mine got a phd and he told me the main benefit was that he had lots more opportunities. He was always called back for job interviews and had lots more positions available. His wife, a nurse, basically supported him while he was getting the degree.
This is still an opportunity cost scenario. Would your friend get called back for job interviews if he had just spent that time in industry and had ~3yr experience on their resume (My experience is yes).
Yes, but in the time it takes to complete a PhD, the junior engineer can usually get promoted at least once. So you both end up in the same place, but the guy who went straight to industry was making 3x more than the PhD in the meantime.
Don't forget that a PhD makes it more difficult to get some kinds of jobs. An intermediate or low level developer job may pay more, but if you have a PhD the interviewers are going to question why you are applying for a low level job and be worried how long you will stay. So in some respects a PhD reduces your employability (though you can always lie and say you never got the PhD, though it is kind of hard to hide on a resume without leaving a time gap, which makes you seem even less employable.)
I did my last postdoc in another European country more or less 8 years ago and my salary was 1700 euros per month (after taxes). Very limited funds for traveling or going to conferences.
That was barely livable, considering it is temporary money, you cannot ask for any mortgage, cannot plan any future and you are often starting to have gray hair (or a full head of gray hair).
I think this is very much a uniquely American article and comment. I believe in many other nations the situation is different on both sides. Postdocs are treated different and get more pay, junior developers get paid less.
I agree with you. I don't know why but the most disfunctional labs I know about are all in the US (Prof putting meetings on sat morning so everyone comes in to work on weekends...), although I know of some pretty bad places in Switzerland as well. You're also correct postdoc salaries higher in Europe (and developer ones are lower). However, there is definitely a problem finding postdocs also here. I should say that this seems to be not just academia, all my industry colleagues are desperate for applicants.
In the US (at least for now) it's fairly easy for a Senior Engineer to get 250k TC, and if income is your goal and you want put the energy towards a FAANG, not that hard to get up to 400-500k. In 2019 the median postdoc salary in the US was ~50k [0].
The work/life balance part is a bit trickier to quantify. Anecdotally US postdocs work pretty hard, but my experience is that highly paid engineers at FAANG-style companies also work pretty hard. If you don't want work to be your life as a SWE $250k seems to be the easiest achievable comp while meeting those requirements.
My experience as a senior engineer at G was that most of my peers and I were working about 20-30 hours/week and collecting 300-500k TC. Some senior SWEs worked long hours, but they weren't rewarded for it, and many quickly adopt the ~30 hour/week lifestyle.
When I was a postdoc 10 years ago in the US I brought home about $2200/month. My health insurance deductible was $5000/year. I paid $1800/month in student loans. My family had to move into my parent's basement, and every credit card was maxed, every bank account overdrawn, major food anxiety, etc.
It is astonishing how poorly academia pays the people who actually do the research; extreme financial stress is a nightmare that can really wreck your life.
It's probably in the US. A friend of mine was physical chemist and was paid in the 20k range per year several years ago and it was barely livable. It's not surprising that a junior developer getting paid 5 times of that.
In the US, a postdoc at a top CS school makes like $60-80k and works 60-80hrs a week, whereas a new grad of the same caliber with just a bachelors (think top 10% of graduating class) can reasonably expect to make >$200k working 40 hours a week at a FAANG. Meanwhile, Research Scientist roles (the common alternative to doing a postdoc in CS) recently cracked $400k starting. These are numbers I have personally experienced. (Verifiable on aipaygrad.es and levels.fyi).
CS is certainly an outlier in terms of salaries, but ANY person capable of landing a postdoc in a STEM field at a competitive school in the US is capable of figuring out a way to get a job as a software engineer in Big Tech (the grind of leet code is nothing compared to the grind of doing a PhD, full stop). This is why >60% of PhD grads in CS across top schools are ending up in industry, and I knew a TON of PhDs from physics, math, chemistry, etc. who left research immediately after graduating and are now SWE.
Where do you get these numbers from? This is not at all like that in Europe. A postdoc gets (say, in France) 30k per year, doing a calm, interesting job and paid travel to a couple of conferences per year, with almost total freedom to choose their daily schedule. This is not a high salary, but it is certainly livable and quite above the median of the country. A 150k salary is nearly out of reach for even quite senior developers, and nonsensical for "junior python developer roles".