I don't know if it's different in the US, but here in Europe I know lots of career academics that consider their postdoc(s) as one the favorite parts of their career. Decent enough pay, very little teaching or management responsibility, and more time than they'll have again to just focus on a single research question. In fact I have a couple of friends who kind of wish they could have spent their entire career hopping from postdoc to postdoc.
> I don't know if it's different in the US, but here in Europe I know lots of career academics that consider their postdoc(s) as one the favorite parts of their career.
How well do they get paid? What kinds of benefits do they get? In the US, the annual salary is $40-50K/year - roughly half that of a tenure track faculty member. I just checked one university and picked a random post doc and a random assistant professor. Postdoc is getting $51K/year, assistant professor is getting $110K/year.
It's fine if you do one stint, but a lot of people need to do multiple of them. It's not all that unusual seeing someone approaching 40 before they get a tenure track position.
I think my wife's salary went up around 15-20% when she went from her final post doc position to her first associate professor position. Benefits didn't change since both post docs and associate professors are considered full employees of the university.
There is some hindsight bias there--_during_ the postdoc, most postdocs are worried about securing a permanent position. That memory fades once a permanent job is secured.
