Worked at Argonne for ~5 years, initially as a postdoc and then some as a scientist. I LOVED working at the lab - you get to do pretty cutting edge stuff and Ar

Worked at Argonne for ~5 years, initially as a postdoc and then some as a scientist. I LOVED working at the lab - you get to do pretty cutting edge stuff and Argonne being near Chicago was pretty cool. The culture is pretty collaborative! Yes, you earn less than the private sector, BUT, you get to work on important stuff that makes a difference (sometimes) and with some very smart people. Plus, you never get bored. Labs like Argonne have plenty (~95%) of open science stuff, so you don't need a clearance. Finding a job there is a challenge though and luck plays a large part. The only drawbacks, besides the pay and location (for other remote labs) is the funding. If you want to pursue your own research agenda, you need to find funding, which can be challenging. The lab overhead rates are pretty steep, so it gets annoying. If you don't want to be a PI, you will need to find a PI who has the funding to support you. How secure that funding is and for how long depends. But if you have a skill set that can be used across fields and domains (e.g., applied stats or data science), then it gets easier to choose PIs and interesting projects.