Almost the same experience, 4 years. I've even stayed after it for another ~3 years because it was ~3x pay as a tech for doing less restricted stuff (no need to

Almost the same experience, 4 years. I've even stayed after it for another ~3 years because it was ~3x pay as a tech for doing less restricted stuff (no need to convince my committee what I do is important) and learning to run essentially a mini-startup within a lab, while being restricted in my portability due to visa policies.