Spotlight: John A. Stevenson

 

Current occupation: Senior Software Developer at the British Geological Survey (BGS)

Summary: Ph.D in Physical Volcanology, awarded by The Open University and based in Lancaster, UK. Subject: Explosive Subglacial Rhyolite Eruptions in Iceland. This was followed by 10 years postdoc experience before a move to software development.  BGS is my second non-academic job.

“Your PhD has given you amazing critical thinking, analytical and communication skills, but most importantly it shows that you can work independently.”

“I regret the time that I spent chasing quick win, high impact papers that ultimately ended up being neither.  I would recommend that unless you are desperately keen for an academic career, it is better to focus on activities that are more likely to give you satisfaction.”

During the last year of your Ph.D., what did you think was your next step? Did you feel supported or encouraged to discuss career paths outside academia?

Academia seemed like the default option.  Until I went to university as an undergraduate I didn’t know what a PhD was or anyone who had one.  (Actually, that’s not true; two of my high school teachers did but I didn’t think about that until now.)  Based on my biased sample, it seemed like nearly everyone with a PhD did an academic job.  I suspect this situation is quite common.

I did not feel encouraged to discuss non-academic career paths. I really enjoyed my PhD and I wanted to do more with volcanoes, so I browsed the Volcano LISTSERV looking for anything interesting. I did also visit the University Careers Service, but I had a limited imagination about possible options and mainly looked at academic jobs. I was then disappointed by the service because I already knew more than them about opportunities within academic volcanology.

Did you apply for postdocs? How did it go?

Yes. It went well. I did three postdocs over the next 10 years: two two-year Postdoc Research Associate jobs and a five-year Fellowship.  I moved from Lancaster to Mexico to England to Scotland.

My girlfriend (now wife) moved with me and found work in each place. There were gaps of a few months between positions. I filled some of that time living at her parents’ house and writing up papers. We also had a 5-month honeymoon. Short term contracts can be good if you are keen to see new places and able to enjoy the breaks between jobs.

The decision to leave academia can be difficult. Can you tell us how you came to that decision?

My final academic position was a five-year Fellowship. Two years in I applied for a vacancy of Volcanology Lecturer in the department where I was based. I had written part of the course and the award letter for my Fellowship had stated “it is expected that this will lead to a permanent position”, so I was very disappointed when I wasn’t even offered an interview.

I went for feedback to the Head of Department, who said that my publication rate was good but that the journals (Bull Volc, JVGR, JGR) were not high impact. He also asked why I hadn’t submitted a grant application so far.  Despite acknowledging that the journal name is a poor measure of science quality and that I had come with five years fully funded, he said that I should ‘play the game’.

I tried playing the game and I lost. I had an article rejected from PNAS because “addressing the comments from Reviewer 3 would make the paper too specialist for our readers”.  I had a grant application that ranked eighth out of the 77 submitted that round; there was only enough funding for seven.  Without extra funding of my own, there was no money for me to stay on. Sexy papers and grants are highly competitive and both depend as much on chance as on ability, knowledge, or effort. I did not like the idea that my future professional- and self-esteem were to be based on a lottery.

Teaching was also an issue. I had thought that the aim of an academic was to learn as much as possible about a subject, make some discoveries, then to share their knowledge and inspire the next generation of students. Teaching was a highlight of working in the university for me, but it was far down the priority list for the professors.  One said “It is a priority; we always ask about it at interview”, another that “if we find a candidate is socially awkward, we won’t let them teach first years”. The implication was clear: hiring decisions are based on research first, teaching second.  I didn’t like this view.

Bit by bit, I realised that I just didn’t love academia anymore. My experience was extreme but friends elsewhere saw the same trends. Decisions are driven by metrics because University management are judged on league table positions. The attitudes of the professors are a rational response to the incentives they are given. It’s easier to increase income from research than from teaching, so that becomes the priority; the money to refurbish the labs has to come from somewhere. And with 200 applications for five positions there is no way that you can judge candidates by actually reading their papers.

Meanwhile, we had a nice family life with a house, a baby, and lots of friends in town. As the contract came to an end, I decided that I would prefer to find a different job here, rather than uproot our family to pursue an academic one elsewhere.

Given your experience in both worlds, do you have advice for Research Fellows wishing to stay in academia?

Collaborate with an existing professor as soon as you begin. This gives you someone to champion your cause behind the scenes in senior management meetings.  Of the Fellows that I know, the best predictor of turning the position into a permanent job was already being a postdoc working with a high-ranking professor in the department.

Design your project carefully. For my five-year fellowship, I planned a project that would take five years. I couldn’t draw firm conclusions without completing my mapping and that took until the end of the fourth year. You need to get publishable results as soon as possible.

Don’t underestimate the effect of parenthood on your out-of-hours “productivity”. Plotting your latest data may be more interesting than watching TV, but it’s not as good as helping your daughter ride her bike. It’s OK to work past midnight when you are in the zone and you can go in to work a bit later the next morning. It’s not when somebody wakes you at 02:00 then at 04:00 and then gets you up for the day at 06:00.

Do you have advice for current PhD students wishing to leave?

I didn’t receive this then, but I would say now: Your PhD has given you amazing critical thinking, analytical and communication skills, but most importantly it shows that you can work independently. You will be amazed at how rare this is in the outside world.

Use open source tools. You can use Python or R instead of Matlab, QGIS instead of Arc, Inkscape instead of Illustrator. The benefit is portability; you can install and use them anywhere. After leaving university you won’t have to pay license fees to apply your hard-earned skills.  See this list of “All the software a geoscientist needs. For free!” for examples.

Wear sunscreen.

What do you currently do, and for how long?

I am currently a Senior Software Developer.  I have worked in this field for nearly three years, with two different employers.

Can you describe how you found your current job?

Towards the end of my Fellowship, I decided to look for jobs in Software Development or Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  I had enjoyed using these tools in my research. I started looking at adverts and for opportunities to meet software developers in the area, such as the local Python group.

At a GIS networking event I saw a talk by a local consultancy that specialised in the same open source tools as I used. The presenter told me that they had a short-term vacancy for a Python developer. I sent them my CV, had a successful interview and started the week after my fellowship ended.

The original contract was for three months.  This was extended, then extended again and again and finally, after being there a year, I was given an open-ended contract. My first permanent job. And only 18 years after leaving High School! In this position I received on-the-job training on software development best practices, cloud computing and Agile project management (which is common in software projects).

One day a friend sent me an advert for a Senior Software Developer at the British Geological Survey.  I was enjoying my GIS work but I missed science. This was an opportunity to combine my newfound skills with the geological knowledge that I had spent 15 years acquiring.  I applied and, thanks to my recent training and experience, I got the job.

What do you like most about your job?

Software development has many of the things that I liked about academia. It is a rapidly moving field, so I can feel like I am working on the cutting edge.  It involves promoting and contributing to open source tools, which feels like it is doing some social good. There are lots of different sub-fields (web, mobile, data architecture, test automation) so there is lots to learn. And passing this knowledge onto colleagues scratches the teaching itch.

Do you feel like your job required a PhD?

No. Software development does not require a PhD.  I was surprised to find that it requires no formal qualifications at all! I would have been much more confident applying for jobs if I had known this.  There are many ways in which a PhD is valuable, however, and people with PhDs make up a larger proportion of the workforce than in other fields.

What skills from your PhD do you feel are valuable in performing your duties?

Research, problem solving, project planning, report writing, verbal communication, independent working.

What skills do you wish you had developed more during your PhD?

If I had learned about writing software tests during my research, I would have written better software at the time.

How does your work-life balance and salary compare to academia?

The work-life balance has hugely improved. This is welcome at a time when we have a young family. My wife has said that I am much more relaxed.

My hourly salary is equivalent to a lecturer position in a University but with the important difference that I only work the hours that I am contracted to. I have flexible working, so I do 34 hours over four days.  I look after our children on Thursdays when my wife is at work. There is also the option to work from home.  When I have had to work longer to meet a deadline, I have been able to claim the time back.

I still co-supervise some PhD students and I have research that I want to publish, so I often spend my evenings at my laptop as I did before. The difference is that now it feels like a hobby.

Some software developers work as independent contractors paid on a daily rate. The salary for this can be double, but at the cost of job insecurity, requirements to travel, and a lack of holiday/sick pay, pensions and other benefits. This may have been more attractive to my younger self. People with PhDs are well-suited to self-employment because they are able to work independently and to organise themselves.

Do you miss academia?

Fieldwork and my friends are the main things that I miss from my time in academia.  Volcanology fieldwork gives amazing, money-can’t-buy experiences such as being marooned between two lahars or driving alongside a wall of advancing lava. The volcanology community is full of friendly and fun people.  Over ten years of expeditions and conferences I built a network of friends around the world whom I would see once a year or so. I will never see most of them again.  I miss seeing a science story on the news and thinking “I saw a seminar on that last month”.

I also miss writing my blog, volcan01010. I spent about two days per month on it during my Fellowship. Outreach is valued even less than teaching so it probably didn’t help my academic job prospects. But I feel that it was a genuine public good and getting rapid and positive feedback on new posts was immensely satisfying. It also got me into Twitter, where I get news on the latest developments in the geekiest niches of both volcanology and software.

I regret the time that I spent chasing quick win, high impact papers that ultimately ended up being neither.  Grant applications are hard work, but I have little to show for my efforts in writing them.  The consequence of ‘playing the game’ is that the main finding from my Fellowship, and the best work that I have ever done, is still sitting unpublished on my laptop. I would recommend that unless you are desperately keen for an academic career, it is better to focus on activities that are more likely to give you satisfaction.

Any advice for someone looking into a similar career path?

If you are interested in software development, then you should learn Git and Linux.

Git is a version control tool. It is central to developing software in a team setting, as well as being used in many open source projects. Even if you don’t go into this line of work, using version control will greatly improve your life if you write any code at all for your research.

The Linux operating system dominates in two major growth areas in software: cloud computing and containers (e.g. Docker). There is plenty of work out there for people who can configure systems via the command line.  Software Carpentry have tutorials for both.

Some other great job suggestions:

Research Software Engineer; Data science; GIS consultancy; Environmental and energy policy; Environmental and energy consultant; Teaching; Publishing