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In many European countries, leaving academia for a job in industry will make it hard to go back in case you don't like the new job. I'm a tenured full (CS) prof

In many European countries, leaving academia for a job in industry will make it hard to go back in case you don't like the new job. I'm a tenured full (CS) professor in Germany with some excursions to industry (research) and had to struggle quite a bit (and have a lot of luck) to be hired in my current position. Maybe there are some alternatives you could try? Many universities offer the opportunity of a leave of absence for a year (or possibly more), so you could try out something else without having to fear losing your job - of course, your publication and funding record will still suffer, but this is maybe not so critical since you already have tenure. Another idea might be to use some of the ideas from your research and try to commercialize them in a startup - perhaps together with some of your students? If this works well, you could also apply for a reduction of your position at the university to spend more time at the startup. Also, applying for a position at a different university (possibly in a different country) might be an idea? Of course, this might be a less attractive option considering you just bought a house.

low_tech_love 4y ago
Thanks a lot for the response! A leave of absence is at the top of my list right now. The problem is, I have no idea where to start looking for a job to try out during the leave.
- permalac 4y ago
  Writing on cellphone. I went from private to academia. Fully understand your pain. When my contract expires in a couple of years I will apply to the biggest companies around me. I'm in the IT sector, so I'll apply to any position in Barcelona, because I've visited and liked the city. My plan is to look at companies there and find LinkedIn contacts, if they are really hiring usualy they have referral bonus and that helps being acknowledged from the inside contact. If that fails, I'll apply to all remote positions posible. And if that fails I'll call my previous employer. In your case, being a professor, I supose you could find some ITIL training, and then go to any process management position in companies above 1000 employees, they are always looking for smart people to understand their mess. They usually promote internally for things like this, so you'll have to contact their HR directly. Or you can contact their ceo directly in LinkedIn, they are just normal people, usually with high prioritization capacity, so send them a "Hello, I'm a professor of X and I like to change careers, could you let me know if your company has positions that would be suitable to my skills?" And hope for the best.
  - sargstuff 4y ago
    As a professor, should be aware of various conferences in field for meeting/greeting others.
  - sargstuff 4y ago
    European countries offer quite a bit of hobby clubs/actities (relative to US).
- sargstuff 4y ago
  ah, which search engine / search terms have been tried? ?? start with a few of the terms in abstracts of papers of relevant interest ?? Can always add term(s) to filter things out aka only areas can get to via public transportaion; only research students worked with; etc. Can always use public wifi like mc donalds instead of university account.
- johndoe0815 4y ago
  This is a bit hard to say without knowing more about your background, of course :). In Germany, there is a high demand from industry not only for people working on AI topics (duh!), but also in systems (OS, hypervisors, compilers, low-level security, etc.). A good starting point, of course, would be to contact companies you collaborated with, for example in the context of an EU project. A professional network might also help to get in touch with relevant companies, for my area of research this would be HiPEAC (https://www.hipeac.net https://www.hipeac.net). Since I'm working in systems, the high demand for graduates from industry makes it very difficult for me - as well as a number of my colleagues in Germany - to find PhD students. This is a bit frustrating, but I'm at least lucky to have very motivated students and TAs in my courses - though the number of students who want to work on advanced systems topics (for example, we are developing a microkernel in Rust for RISC-V in the context of a student project) is rather low right now.

low_tech_love 4y ago

Thanks a lot for the response! A leave of absence is at the top of my list right now. The problem is, I have no idea where to start looking for a job to try out during the leave.

permalac 4y ago
Writing on cellphone. I went from private to academia. Fully understand your pain. When my contract expires in a couple of years I will apply to the biggest companies around me. I'm in the IT sector, so I'll apply to any position in Barcelona, because I've visited and liked the city. My plan is to look at companies there and find LinkedIn contacts, if they are really hiring usualy they have referral bonus and that helps being acknowledged from the inside contact. If that fails, I'll apply to all remote positions posible. And if that fails I'll call my previous employer. In your case, being a professor, I supose you could find some ITIL training, and then go to any process management position in companies above 1000 employees, they are always looking for smart people to understand their mess. They usually promote internally for things like this, so you'll have to contact their HR directly. Or you can contact their ceo directly in LinkedIn, they are just normal people, usually with high prioritization capacity, so send them a "Hello, I'm a professor of X and I like to change careers, could you let me know if your company has positions that would be suitable to my skills?" And hope for the best.
- sargstuff 4y ago
  As a professor, should be aware of various conferences in field for meeting/greeting others.
- sargstuff 4y ago
  European countries offer quite a bit of hobby clubs/actities (relative to US).
sargstuff 4y ago
ah, which search engine / search terms have been tried? ?? start with a few of the terms in abstracts of papers of relevant interest ?? Can always add term(s) to filter things out aka only areas can get to via public transportaion; only research students worked with; etc. Can always use public wifi like mc donalds instead of university account.
johndoe0815 4y ago
This is a bit hard to say without knowing more about your background, of course :). In Germany, there is a high demand from industry not only for people working on AI topics (duh!), but also in systems (OS, hypervisors, compilers, low-level security, etc.). A good starting point, of course, would be to contact companies you collaborated with, for example in the context of an EU project. A professional network might also help to get in touch with relevant companies, for my area of research this would be HiPEAC (https://www.hipeac.net https://www.hipeac.net). Since I'm working in systems, the high demand for graduates from industry makes it very difficult for me - as well as a number of my colleagues in Germany - to find PhD students. This is a bit frustrating, but I'm at least lucky to have very motivated students and TAs in my courses - though the number of students who want to work on advanced systems topics (for example, we are developing a microkernel in Rust for RISC-V in the context of a student project) is rather low right now.