4.0
Dec 15, 2023
Current employee, more than 5 years
Bethesda, MD
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
The resources (funding, equipment) for research are peerless. No place in the world is better. And your colleagues will be world class.
Cons
Being an NIH staff scientist is a dead end. It's not a route to becoming an NIH tenure-track investigator nor is it a good way of becoming tenure-track faculty elsewhere. In hiring new assistant professors, universities are looking for fresh-faced postdocs, not staff scientists approaching middle age. If you go the staff scientist route, you have to be aware that this is it; there's nothing more. And you should think carefully about what you'll do when your PI retires.