I am just one data point, but here's how I ended up in a position similar to that described in the article. I went to a "HYPS" school for grad school and postd

I am just one data point, but here's how I ended up in a position similar to that described in the article. I went to a "HYPS" school for grad school and postdoc (molecular biology). I wanted the typical tenure-track research position. At the end of my postdoc I had two interviews, one at at an ivy and the other at a very good state research university. Both jobs fell through for financial reasons (basically, both schools decided to withdraw funding for the position). At the time, my postdoc funding was running out and my sponsor suggested working at a startup in Cambridge. I took the startup job. It was a great job doing great research. However, after about 6 years, I decided that I needed to take care of aging parents and be closer to family. I quit the startup and moved to a place where there is essentially no biotech industry. There are some good schools in the area, but it's difficult to get back into the tenure-track research world as you get older (you can transition from industry to academia as an older person if you're "great", but I'm not great...I'm what I would call, "pretty good"...and a pretty good mid-to-late-40-year-old isn't getting tenure-track jobs at quality research universities). So, I'm geographically tied (by my choice). I work as an adjunct at a local university and as a full-time non-tenured faculty member at a local college (not a fancy school and no research). I also run a small consulting business. So, with 3 different jobs, I have cobbled together a salary that is similar to what I had in the biotech world (probably a little less than the biotech job). A lot of the details in the Atlantic story rang true. I meet students from my adjunct position at the library (not by my car!). I keep almost everything in electronic format (including electronic scanning of student labs) so that I minimize lugging papers from school to school. The full-time faculty where I am an adjunct are quite nice, but you still get that vibe that you're a 2nd class citizen. If I want to write a student a recommendation, it's not a trivial endeavor to go to the adjunct school to get the proper letterhead paper. However, I've just downloaded the school's logo and made my own electronic version of their letterhead. I think I'm in a better position than many of my colleagues. I'm still making decent money in aggregate. I think some of the adjuncts have very difficult lives, living check to check. And the ones who aren't very good at teaching (or who don't get along with the full-timers) feel like they're under constant threat of getting fired.