So this week marks a year since I left academia to join the "dark side" - industry (biotech).

Thought I'd share a few observations (1/6)

I was worried about the "creative freedom" trade off - in industry I no longer could pursue wacky ideas (by I, I mean my students who actually did all of the work).

What I hadn't expected was that this was offset by being creative in terms of problem solving strategies (2/6)

Not having your future defined by publishing papers and winning grants is also a plus.

There are still very tight deadlines to meet and outcomes to drive to, but the person responsible for that is you, and not a panel of experts. (3/6)

The people are the same! In academia, I worked with driven scientists. In my current role, I work with driven scientists. The cast hasn't changed, but the narrative and motivations have. Everyone is still in it together. (4/6)

The BIGGEST difference from being a PI is someone saying "hey, good job back there on x". In academia, victories can feel lonely. In industry, if you execute, then the company executes and everybody benefits. Everyone acutely feels the success and failure of everyone else. (5/6)

Finally, I don't earn 10x what I did in industry vs academia, nor do I work shorter hours. It is not a 9-5 job (well, not for me anyway!) and to be honest, there are more similarities than differences - the "jump" is actually much smaller than a lot of people think (6/6)