I am extremely happy that the my initial postdoc route was a total bust. It was so hard to leave academia and take a risk in the startup space directly after my PhD.  I ended up in data engineering&#x2F;science at a small EdTech startup.  Looking beyond the bump in salary (relative to a postdoc), I find my work extremely rewarding, love my colleagues,  and really look forward to going into work everyday and developing my skill set.  This was probably the best career decision that I made in life so far. This non-traditional career path is hard for my family, friends, and professors to fully digest and absorb.  My dad still wonders why I got a degree in virology&#x2F;immunology and decided to basically go into software engineering.  My friends who are still in academia think I made a terrible mistake going into a startup scene completely unrelated to my graduate education.  However, I feel like I am getting great training and setting up for a wonderful career.  I seriously doubt I would have felt the same way if I ended up as a postdoc in some research lab.