8 ms·

SWE's are a tiny slice of 'STEM' and by far the most profitable. How much do you think the average phd in biology makes? maybe 30k/y till 27, then 45k/y till 3

SWE's are a tiny slice of 'STEM' and by far the most profitable. How much do you think the average phd in biology makes? maybe 30k/y till 27, then 45k/y till 30, then followed by 75-90?

ghaff 7y ago
And SWEs at a handful of large US tech employers are an even tinier slice.
fizwhiz 7y ago
I think your example of a biologist is a bit disingenuous. By 27 they've probably just wrapped up their PhD and were making a paltry stipend to work in a professor's research lab. If they're inclined to continue working for academia then it's not surprising that they won't break past 6 figures. You could just as easily pick people from different fields that are pursuing a career in academia and find that professors at the top-tier make a fraction of what their students make at top-tier companies. I also think the remark about "stability" was hand wavy. What is it about non-SWE STEM roles that make them so unstable compared to consulting or law?
- thereisnospork 7y ago
  > By 27 they've probably just wrapped up their PhD and were making a paltry stipend to work in a professor's research lab followed by 2-4 years at a postdoc, asked for in every job application for a 'biologist II' which has an average salary of ~77k (per indeed). This is for industry, not academia. So how am I am misrepresenting the fact that being a biologist takes over 7+ years of being grossly underpaid relative to a SWE at FAANG to wind up being a little less grossly underpaid than a SWE at FAANG?
  - fizwhiz 7y ago
    Forgive me for I live in a bubble so I don't know a great deal about why someone would spend that many years in school to land a 77k job. I also don't know much about compensation structure (ex: is comp == salary or are there other components?) I do know a couple of friends that work at Genentech who comfortably pull in > 200k so there's that.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      Biology is one of the lower paid STEM disciplines, and the toughest to break into professorships. Most biology majors are just premed anyways.
    - thereisnospork 7y ago
      > Forgive me for I live in a bubble so I don't know a great about why someone would spend that many years in school to land a 77k job. I also don't know much about compensation structure (ex: is comp == salary or are there other components?) comp pretty much == salary (plus benefits, like insurance, 4% 401k match, maybe small bonuses). My take is that the low salaries is primarily due to the appeal of the work - kids grow up wanting to be biologists, (chemists, physicists) so there is a labor oversupply. A strong secondary contributor is overhead - a scientist can easily cost 2x salary in overhead for equipment and reagents (very field dependent). To your point it is possible make decent money in big pharma, but they are essentially the FAANG of the bio/chemistry world and still come with 7y postgrad prereqs.
      - Fomite 7y ago
        There's also less room to move. It's much harder for someone whose been doing PCR for the past 6 years to go "You know what, screw this..." than there is for someone whose been working on the analysis of large datasets in say, physics. And, perceptional-wise, leaving for industry is often seen as a failure.
        asdff 7y ago
        People doing PCR for 6 years are probably generating a pretty big dataset for analysis... Bioinformatics is an entire field. The lines between molecular biology, genetics, physics, chemistry, statistics, and computer science are getting very blurry these days. Plenty of bio phds get hired for data scientist roles in industry. No one is going to knock you for leaving for industry these days. Anyone who is a big deal enough in academia to have that kind of ego is already going to have started a company or three themselves on the side.
thrower123 7y ago
This is why I have a bit of an aneurysm whenever all of these wildly disparate things are lumped together under the umbrella of "STEM". Notably, we keep medicine in the acronym, but in almost all discussions, doctors and nurses and everything else that would fit under that heading are forked out already. - Edit: derp, it's Math, not medicine, but there's an indication of how brain-rotted I've gotten trying to follow this subject. Each of them is it's own world with it's own context and it's own problems.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  I thought the M was maths and medicine wasn't in STEM?
- sokoloff 7y ago
  > Notably, we keep medicine in the acronym I believe the "M" in STEM is Mathematics, not Medicine.
- oarabbus_ 7y ago
  STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
pb7 7y ago
Doctors are also a tiny slice of medicine. Nurses make a fraction of what doctors make, and other roles like Clinical Laboratory Technologist and Radiology Technician that make healthcare possible make even less. Law exhibits a bimodal distribution in compensation as well. Paralegals make even less than poorly compensated lawyers.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Also, the super well compensated doctors are a small slice of doctors overall. Most doctors end up doing family practice, which isn't super lucrative. Once you factor in the hundreds of thousands in loans, there are many non-doctor career paths that have better outcomes than that.

SWE's are a tiny slice of 'STEM' and by far the most profitable. How much do you think the average phd in biology makes? maybe 30k/y till 27, then 45k/y till 30, then followed by 75-90?

ghaff 7y ago

And SWEs at a handful of large US tech employers are an even tinier slice.

fizwhiz 7y ago

I think your example of a biologist is a bit disingenuous. By 27 they've probably just wrapped up their PhD and were making a paltry stipend to work in a professor's research lab. If they're inclined to continue working for academia then it's not surprising that they won't break past 6 figures. You could just as easily pick people from different fields that are pursuing a career in academia and find that professors at the top-tier make a fraction of what their students make at top-tier companies. I also think the remark about "stability" was hand wavy. What is it about non-SWE STEM roles that make them so unstable compared to consulting or law?

thereisnospork 7y ago
> By 27 they've probably just wrapped up their PhD and were making a paltry stipend to work in a professor's research lab followed by 2-4 years at a postdoc, asked for in every job application for a 'biologist II' which has an average salary of ~77k (per indeed). This is for industry, not academia. So how am I am misrepresenting the fact that being a biologist takes over 7+ years of being grossly underpaid relative to a SWE at FAANG to wind up being a little less grossly underpaid than a SWE at FAANG?
- fizwhiz 7y ago
  Forgive me for I live in a bubble so I don't know a great deal about why someone would spend that many years in school to land a 77k job. I also don't know much about compensation structure (ex: is comp == salary or are there other components?) I do know a couple of friends that work at Genentech who comfortably pull in > 200k so there's that.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Biology is one of the lower paid STEM disciplines, and the toughest to break into professorships. Most biology majors are just premed anyways.
  - thereisnospork 7y ago
    > Forgive me for I live in a bubble so I don't know a great about why someone would spend that many years in school to land a 77k job. I also don't know much about compensation structure (ex: is comp == salary or are there other components?) comp pretty much == salary (plus benefits, like insurance, 4% 401k match, maybe small bonuses). My take is that the low salaries is primarily due to the appeal of the work - kids grow up wanting to be biologists, (chemists, physicists) so there is a labor oversupply. A strong secondary contributor is overhead - a scientist can easily cost 2x salary in overhead for equipment and reagents (very field dependent). To your point it is possible make decent money in big pharma, but they are essentially the FAANG of the bio/chemistry world and still come with 7y postgrad prereqs.
    - Fomite 7y ago
      There's also less room to move. It's much harder for someone whose been doing PCR for the past 6 years to go "You know what, screw this..." than there is for someone whose been working on the analysis of large datasets in say, physics. And, perceptional-wise, leaving for industry is often seen as a failure.
      - asdff 7y ago
        People doing PCR for 6 years are probably generating a pretty big dataset for analysis... Bioinformatics is an entire field. The lines between molecular biology, genetics, physics, chemistry, statistics, and computer science are getting very blurry these days. Plenty of bio phds get hired for data scientist roles in industry. No one is going to knock you for leaving for industry these days. Anyone who is a big deal enough in academia to have that kind of ego is already going to have started a company or three themselves on the side.

thrower123 7y ago

This is why I have a bit of an aneurysm whenever all of these wildly disparate things are lumped together under the umbrella of "STEM". Notably, we keep medicine in the acronym, but in almost all discussions, doctors and nurses and everything else that would fit under that heading are forked out already. - Edit: derp, it's Math, not medicine, but there's an indication of how brain-rotted I've gotten trying to follow this subject. Each of them is it's own world with it's own context and it's own problems.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
I thought the M was maths and medicine wasn't in STEM?
sokoloff 7y ago
> Notably, we keep medicine in the acronym I believe the "M" in STEM is Mathematics, not Medicine.
oarabbus_ 7y ago
STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

pb7 7y ago

Doctors are also a tiny slice of medicine. Nurses make a fraction of what doctors make, and other roles like Clinical Laboratory Technologist and Radiology Technician that make healthcare possible make even less. Law exhibits a bimodal distribution in compensation as well. Paralegals make even less than poorly compensated lawyers.

CydeWeys 7y ago
Also, the super well compensated doctors are a small slice of doctors overall. Most doctors end up doing family practice, which isn't super lucrative. Once you factor in the hundreds of thousands in loans, there are many non-doctor career paths that have better outcomes than that.