In the UK a postdoc is the first job after your PhD. You obviously aren’t going to get a professorship for a couple of decades, and will be too junior for a lectureship as well, so you have to do something in between. What do you do if not a postdoc?
From a pragmatic perspective that is how the calculus worked for me. It’s probably where the stigma arises from as well. Although I wish it weren’t like that, I never thought the purpose of a college/university education should be so limited to ‘job training’ (that’s what trade schools are for). That’s the American perspective, anyways.
I don’t understand why - are postdoctoral jobs age-limited or something? Why can’t you keep doing them?
While postdoctoral jobs aren't age limited, they are defined in the US as a temporary training position, and it's not possible to remain a postdoc for very long. The vast majority of postdocs in the US are foreign nationals, on a visa scheme that limits their stay to a theoretical maximum of 5 years. The salary is low enough that it dissuades postdocs from remaining in these positions for very long anyway. Some institutions may support transitioning senior postdocs to a more semi-permanent "associate" position, but that's not usually the case. The visa scheme also disallows postdocs from applying for a green card (while maintaining status), which complicates matters further.
Very few graduate students think seriously about their destination during their doctoral program and are happy to be in the lab all day meeting goals their advisor sets out for them. And advisors are also happy to let this be the state of affairs since you are getting highly trained, motivated workers for pennies. This passivity starts dissipating only during a postdoc and not always. Poor mentorship can be excused in industry, but this is inexcusable when academics are paid to be mentors; it's literally in a professor's job description. NSF/DOE/NIH grants all have significant mentorship sections - and they are there for a reason.
In Biology for instance, inflation is so insane that most tenure-track positions demand you have significant postdoctoral experience. Same applies to many industry jobs.
“Senior job demands significant work experience” what am I misunderstanding?
I know people who don’t want to teach or lead a group or work in industry so they do postdoctoral RA work. That’s their career. Why’s that not seen as a valid thing to do in the US? People are saying ‘because you might not get tenure.’ Ok but not everyone wants that career.
That's why the position of Research Assistant Professors exist - the way around the postdoc time limit loophole.
However, RAPs are significantly more expensive than postdocs, which is why faculty are more eager to phase out senior postdocs and hire fresh blood rather than convert them to RAPs.
UC Berkeley, for example, pays its postdocs $60k to $65k per year. It's challenging to live in the Bay Area for that money. Also, remember many postdocs have kids or are planning to have one. Child care is at least $2000 a month in the Bay Area. Asking bright, motivated individuals to delay their life decisions in pursuit of ill-defined scientific ideals is something I have a tough time defending.
Junior researchers were absolutely shortchanged in the pandemic shutdown, and nobody is bothered about it. For all the talk about keeping people safe, why were younger scientists denied access to experimental facilities, and yet almost no funding agencies extended grant contracts? Almost zero institutions extended their timed postdoc contracts too. And to add insult to the injury, most academic institutions had hiring freezes in 2020, effectively kiboshing careers of young scientists caught in this trap.
Honestly, I am disgusted with university faculty right now - all fancy talk, no action.
Whatever it is, the reverse will actually be trotted out, scientists saved lives and pat themselves on their backs.