r/Physics • u/RoundElephant5876 • 6d ago
employed physicist
Those of you who have completed research physics and are currently working, how is it, what exactly do you do, are you satisfied, do you work inside your country (and if yes, which one) or abroad, online, how difficult was it for you to get your current job?
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u/Worried-Tie 5d ago edited 5d ago
I'm a scientist doing full time research, this is what I trained for. I love my job but it's incredibly competitive and has a very long path towards stability. This makes it very difficult to start a family, buy a home, etc - classic adulting things that people will start doing around you when you approach your 30s. This part sucks. Financially, I'm ok, enough to have a piggy bank of savings, and investing in the stock market. This will greatly depend on where you live, but salaries after a PhD are generally decent.
I'm also not living in my home country, I moved to Austria last year for a postdoc (i.e., the type of jobs you get for a while after you do your PhD). This was sort of "willingly" as I had a job that would've kept me in Spain, and was relatively satisfied with my life there. But if you want to progress your career towards being principal investigator/lead your own research group, at least 2 years of postdoc experience abroad are basically needed to even get through the door of funding agencies.
Don't pursue this career if you expect any degree of hand holding, or if you want a "normal" life. This is for people who are truly committed to science and love doing research; it doesn't feel like simply a job, instead your life will revolve around it.
In any case, people leak from academia to industry at all career stages and you will have plenty of opportunities. All my college buddies have well paid jobs and have either remained in physics, moved to some type of engineering-like job, or moved to completely different sectors such as finance and consultancy. I frequently get offered (rather appropriate for my skills and background) jobs in LinkedIn, and I know the door to industry is always open, which gives me some degree of reassurance. It's honestly an excellent bachelor's degree that will set you up with a bunch of skills that literally nobody has, which makes physicists very valuable.
I wouldn't change a thing about my career choices, if anything I would've studied harder to help me advance my career earlier on, but so far I'm doing ok.
PS: ofc this is in Europe, seems like most Americans here seem to be saying the job market is tough over there, so I guess it'll depend based on what side of the pond you're on.