That’s about right in my field (biomed research).

quite a bit higher in the government labs

I don’t think there’s a biomed equivalent to “government labs” — research institutes are typically associated with universities and pay even less than NIH scale. Here’s the NRSA postdoc scale:

Years of Experience: yearly pay

0: $36,996
1: $38,976
2: $41,796
3: $43,428
4: $45,048
5: $46,992
6: $48,852
7 or more: $51,036

And it’s my experience that most universities and institutes pay less than NRSA fellowships. Compare that with the quoted numbers:

position (years of experience): median salary

Biologist I (0-2): $40,943
Biologist II (2-4): $52,002
Biologist III (4-6): $60,910
Biologist IV (6-8): $72,984
Biologist V (8+): $83,205

So the question becomes: how many of these lucrative positions are available, and how does that compare to the number of postdoc positions?

I don’t have the data to hand to answer my own question, but I will say this: I certainly hope that noone is going to choose a research career on the basis of the Jupiter numbers as expected earnings.

It’s rare for scientists from the outside to enter Italy to do science. As an American your permit-of-stay will be your largest headache (you will have it easier than me, but your wife will still have to sign for your permit every ~year). In my most frustrating moments I have written and spoke publically about the difficulties that foreign scientists experience to enter Italy and do science with respect to legal status — Italy doesn’t distinguish skilled immigrants from unskilled immigrants, and with respect to those unliveable salaries, which makes the final decision to leave for you. If you want these references, write me and I can send them to you.

P.S. Lucky you.. in Veneto, services almost function normally!

P.S.S. Did you check out SISSA? Or, to try to work around the pitiful low salary, perhaps you can get in someplace on a Marie Curie Fellowship.

Amara — I hear you about Italy and salaries. I’m actually trying to find work in Italy right now (in the Veneto region) as an American and am appalled. 1200 euro per month for “un ricercatore?” (Why am I looking? Wife in the Italian academic world — and I’m considering leaving NASA for THIS?)

As per the NASA/Hansen/Cleave comments — most of the time I think it’s poor choices made by underlings who don’t know what they are doing or why they are censoring rather than Orwellian directives from above. BUT, the fact that they feel that they must please the administration is sad and scary in itself.

My, when you finally start to get to earn the big $$ in astrophysics, you end up being scolded by a politically appointed underling, whose sole role is to be (Orwellian isn’t this) “one of the officials appointed to review Hansen’s work.”

“They’re trying to control what’s getting out to the public,” Hansen said, adding that many of his colleagues are afraid to talk about the issue. “They’re not willing to say much, because they’ve been pressured and they’re afraid they’ll get into trouble.”

But Mary L. Cleave, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Office of Earth Science, said the agency insists on monitoring interviews with scientists to ensure they are not misquoted.

“People could see it as a constraint,” Cleave said. “As a manager, I might see it as protection.”

That is of course Protection of the President!!! So do you want to get to the big $$???

Shhhh! Don’t tell everyone!

Well, I’m a happy wreck, as opposed to a miserable one. I do try to get to sleep earlier these days, but have not got the trick to work fully yet….

Anyway, as compensation, I play hard on the weekends. Gardening: digging holes, filling them in, painting things, sawing things, drilling things, hammering things, shopping for things, hiking to and from uh…things, movies…. and the occasional exploration of the cafe and bar scene in one neighbourhood or other. Keeps me in contact with life, or whatever.

-cvj

I am not atypical, I’m sure, and I get up at 6:00am every day, I am in my office (depending on the day) by any time from 7:30 to 8:30 am. I can often (not always) be still found there twelve hours later…. and when I head home I’m still working and might work some more when I get there (depending upon how exhausted I am).

And you sleep during seminars?
Your schedule would turn my body into a miserable wreck! If I have to get up at 6 am, then I need to sleep at 10 pm at the latest, so I have to go to bed a bit before that time. I need to do my daily excercising (running) at least 4 hours before going to bed, so that means that my working day must be finished a bit before 6 pm. But I can still work 12 hours a day by working from home.

In general it seems that in software the idea of design as a driving principle (as opposed to functionality) is only now becoming dominant. As a Microsoft employee recently said, Microsoft is now employing as many designers per project as there were in the entire company 5 years ago. It’s true for the entire field that software used to (and still does) suffer from being engineer designed rather then designer designed, that’s not specific to physicists I think…

If SAP has a lot of physicists working for them, it would explain why there software is not suited to the business world. It is cumbersome, expensive and forces business to conform to the software vs. the software conforming to the business.

Cheers,

Elliot

That’s a fair point Clifford. While working outside of science, and having been secure in the lifestyle and disposition it has granted me in security, lets not be to glossy on the expectations that each of us has to earn our stripes so to speak, and that it will all be yellow roses and such.:)

Those whose value reocgnizes, the blood, sweat, and tears, know full well that such expectations, to have a “pot of gold” in how we can now look at the things that we did not have an opportunity to pursue earlier, can have branches within the sciences, that you had trained for.

Become creative, inventive, and bring forth the aspects of idealogy that was not seen before. “Only,” what experience allows one to see into the writing, that on the previous day, without the knowledge, now sees what never had been transparent before.

Yes they can all do it, but it takes work and commitment, and it is “exciting” to venture, while your security has been taken care of. Family, home, food, responsibilites, work, and “now” what you love most:)

Cheers,

-cvj