Brain drain in tech's future?

TalkBack 8 of 42:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Yeah, but that's not research

Unlike the previous posters I *do* work in research - and make a
pretty good living out of it. So no, a PhD is not by itself a
guarantee that the holder wil be brilliant.

But... all the innovation I have seen springs from a solid
knowledge base. I have extremely competent technical workers
(mostly, but not exclusively non-PhD's) who occasionally
surprise me by popping a genuinely novel (and useful) idea out
of the air: though it's extremely rare that thay can take it further
than the idea. They do a lot of the day to day grunt work and are
essential for any good research program.

But I also work and compete with the "alpha guys" who keep
popping brilliant ideas out year after year and who (with their
groups) turn those into things that advance the field. They are
all PhD.s.

In other words, not all PhDs turn out to be alphas but pretty
much all alphas pass through a PhD phase: so if you want to
recruit them, that's where to look.

And on the topic of the article itself: I now routinely discuss
economic matters with my Grad students, PhDs and
postdoc.s, along with microarray analysis and statistical tests.
Many people who go into science are incredibly naive about the
job market, salaries and how to survive in what's an incredibly
competitive market. It's better for everyone if they bail early if
they decide a research career is not what they want.

The cold hard truth is that a research career offers a longer
training period, longer hours and harder working conditions
than most jobs, for which you are compensated by relatively low
pay and almost no job security. I know whereof I speak - last
year I turned down two management jobs that offered shorter
hours, less stress and 50 grand a year more than I currently
make.

But then I'd have to be an office drone. Research is a job you
have to do for love. You can - if you're good - make a decent
living at it, but you need to be aware going in that you can make
a lot more money more easily in almost any other field.

So yeah, that's why people in the US (and the UK) are choosing
other fields. It's also why science/engineering jobs are
overwhelmingly attractive in places like Eastern Europe and most
of Asia: in those countries compensation in engineerng and hard
sciences are relatively better compared to executive-level
compensation.

For me, revelation came two years ago, when doing consulting
work. I went to the US to do my postdoc, because if you wanted
to do medical biotech, that was where it was happening. I stayed
on and got a job at the NIH. But 6 years ago I moved to Europe,
because I got a better job offer (more resources, better working
conditions, more money - what's not to like?) Today, more and
more of my staffers are drawn from the US - and many of them
are senior level people. 10 years ago that just would not have
happened. Hell, 10 years ago I wouldn't have moved myself.

But now the balance has shifted. The US is still a mighty force in
biotech, but it doesn't dominate the field the way it used to a
decade ago. I guess (but don't know) that computer
development is now going the same way. It's certainly not just
biotech. Now the pressure is on US carmakers with regard to
hybrid technology, the big two (who used to dominate the field
of automotive engineering in the days of the big three) thrashed
around for a bit and then licenced Toyota's technology because
they had no viable alternative. Ford cut its hybrid research
(along with a lot of other research) 8 years ago. Airbus is eating
Boeing alive because, simply put, they have newer, better
designs. Boeing at least is fighting back with the new high-tech
Dreamliner for which they recruited a whole new materials
composition team..... in Russia.

The fix is simple: better conditions, better pay. It may happen,
but I doubt it. The reason this has happened in the first place is
because US business is overwhelmingly focused on the short
term bottom line. In arenas where the US maintains a good edge
(software, for example) you find players like Apple and Microsoft
who invest a lot in R&D. But money spent on research is
investment for the future and if you are a senior executive that
means taking out of your bottom line now to support the bottom
line in the future - when some other guy is probably going to be
in charge. That's a no-brainer decison, right?

Cheers, Mark

Posted by: markdoc.geo   Posted on: 04/11/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• July 7th: The Virtual Presenter's Series: Start Right! Design Right!P resent Right! Citrix Online Presenting online is a completely different ballgame from presenting in ... Download Now
• Building the Virtualized Enterprise with VMware Infrastructure VMware VMware virtualization software has been adopted by over 120,000 enterprise ... Download Now
• The Scalable Enterprise: VMware ESX Server on the Dell PowerEdge 6650 Dell This paper introduces the server virtualization software, VMware ESX ... Download Now