A software developer who earned a Bachelor's in chemistry once told me that he didn't find that the pay in chemistry was worthwhile considering the expertise an

A software developer who earned a Bachelor's in chemistry once told me that he didn't find that the pay in chemistry was worthwhile considering the expertise and training involved. He said that the most available job for chemical research for someone with a Bachelor's was as a lab technician, which roughly earns about $40,000 USD a year: not bad, but far below an engineering or computer science graduate, despite the comparable difficulty for completing the degree. For chemists who complete a doctorate, a brief search shows that a PhD graduate (after 4–7+ years of low pay as a graduate student after a Bachelor's) can plausibly earn about $125,000 USD with some luck as a starting salary as a scientist in industry. A Master's graduate can likely earn close to that. But I've heard that the job market is tougher for research positions—a fair number of people switch into other fields such as medical device sales and sales engineering (with eye-wateringly large salaries of plausibly greater than $400,000 USD a year from what I've heard), data science, or software. But careers aren't only about the money, though. It sounds like the author of the submitted article has lived a fulfilling life without a primary focus on salary, and it certainly looks like people who enjoy chemistry research won't struggle financially for their efforts. However, there's still a salary gap, especially at the level of a Bachelor's: it looks clear that other fields pay a lot more for similar amounts of effort. Note that I lack personal experience in this field, though—people who have gone through this path likely have better, more specific insights about the career.