I used to work as a research software engineer in life sciences and I absolutely loved it. Jobs at universities allowed me to learn and experiment. However, uni

I used to work as a research software engineer in life sciences and I absolutely loved it. Jobs at universities allowed me to learn and experiment. However, universities cannot compete with industry when it comes to salaries. For example, in Germany where I now live, all public universities (and almost all prestigious schools that do high-profile research are public) have strict salary rules. You can find tables (like this one [1]), according to which your pay is determined. It depends on the job, land (state), degree, and years worked. While this kind of money allows comfortable life (or at least did before the inflation hit hard), industry offers at least 30% more (based on my perception). [1] https://www.jobs-beim-staat.de/tarif/tv-l_e13 https://www.jobs-beim-staat.de/tarif/tv-l_e13