I left academia in the UK as a postdoc in robotics, joined Firebase via H1B visa to San Fransisco, got aquired by Google, worked for 4 years. I found working for Google stressful, but lucrative and so it was the best decision i made. It totally change the course of my life for the better. I learnt so much about building teams, scaling impact, productionizing software, dealing with public. I missed academic problems, they are fun, but knowing your software has millions of users feels better and its nice having family vaguely recognize what you do. The medical and financial stability let me start a family without fear, not having to stress about money is a huge weight off my shoulders. I feel very lucky.

Not sure how repetable that is. I was lucky to get a h1b, and i was lucky picking a winner like Firebase early stage, but i genuinely beleived it was the future of development. So great move, and i think i could go back into academia if i wanted, so its left me in a stronger position.