The girlfriend is a high gs at a va. They get performance pay based on productivity... A few thousand irrc (I tune out when she talks about the va). I’ve asked how productivity and performance are rated in a few interviews, and the hiring managers seem to not like that specific question. Which kinda eludes that the hiring managers aren’t directly involved in the funding aspect… or just the specific row and column.
The pay is low and there’s few positions tbh. For how many years of education (especially in US where the PhD is 5 years)…. It’s quite the scam. Post doc is 50k. Research scientists (at uni) ~60k. Professor (non tenure) is capped around 75ish and tenure track starts at 75…. Gov postdocs pay 95k and are quite competitive. Which means if one doesn’t have 3 first author publications in high impact factor journals, that’s a no go (unless one falls in the dei)…. The market is overly saturated with science majors with only university experience, and entry level positions are being bombarded with PhD applicants…. With how universal things have become, it seems that one is competing against the entire workforce of the world for a few slots… I’ve tried to break away with experience in hazardous waste disposal and safety…
Should find a picture of me bulking HF into 55 gallon drums.