I'd suggest figuring out which niche of data science most aligns with your personal interests and start there. Hiring managers don't discriminate based on "too many years in academia", it's more what's the reason they should hire YOU over candidate y?
Diehard animal lover? I bet the Sierra Club would love a statistician who could help them quantify how many elephants are being poached in Africa per year.
Interested in sports? Strava gets millions of data points a day, I'm sure they're looking for help finding signals in the noise.
Can't get enough of financial markets? Finance jobs all over the place for quants.
If your profile is too generic they'll see no good reason to hire you, but if you're passionate about X it can really work in your favor.
The job search is depressing but never give up hope.