>>12000562With a BA/BS in industry, you're looking at temp jobs at CROs, or QC jobs at mid-size biopharma. Jobs may pay 40k-60k, upper-end in SF, but with cost-of-living that's pretty low. Most jobs concentrated in SF, San Diego, Boston, followed by Philly, NJ, maybe some in CT and North Carolina. About a decade ago, job hopped my first year out of school, then went to work as a tech in academia. Would recommend, you'll have more autonomy and can run a project, learn some techniques, get letters of rec, make connections. Most decent industry RA jobs require at least 3 years of tech experience post-undergrad, more and more want 5+. Seems to convince big pharma or even biotech that you're not going to leave to go back to grad school. People I know who took that route went to grad school, med school, biotech, pharma, sales, even MBAs or JDs. So yeah, recommend working as a lab tech for a couple years.
Got my PhD, now onto academic postdoc in biotech hub with heavy industry collaborations. For a principal scientist/group leader/associate director in industry at a big pharma or mid-size biotech, I'd say PhD + postdoc. Rise through the ranks, director, VP, whatever. Industry experience takes over soon, no doubt, but I'd say postdoc training puts you on a different trajectory to start off. My two cents, maybe others with more experience have seen different? Small biotech, you could go in early as a PhD and rise with the company, but you gotta be early, like employee 20 or less. As far as pay, I'd say starting in big pharma total comp would be ~140-160k, this is all in with bonus and options. Higher end going to be in SF at big-name shops (read: Genentech). Maybe ~120 - 130 at mid-size biopharma. Small biotech pays least, you may start at ~105-115 total comp if you're lucky, but you're taking equity. This is all PhD + solid postdoc with good pubs, well-connected PI, and in an in-demand area, i.e. chemical biology, phage display, SPR, whatever.
