A big problem that science graduates have is that the market doesn't believe in academic training. A big company will take a smart engineer and train him/her on

A big problem that science graduates have is that the market doesn't believe in academic training. A big company will take a smart engineer and train him/her on a particular technique (data mining, for example) rather than hiring someone with that particular skill (usually from grad school). Even if they eventually hire such a person, the new hire will usually be working for the in-house "expert" until they can prove themselves, which is pretty much a political process. It is rare the case when a company will hire an academic person to directly lead a company effort, and when this happens it is because the person is already famous and has a lot of consulting/real world experience. The path you mentioned is great if you can find a company where you can make a major contribution using your skills, but for the reasons I mentioned it has still the same problem (bozo bit) that you cited before.