> If you want to have a tenure track "professor" position focused on teaching in a top-tier university, you need to be a great researcher as teaching skills are not considered much
Not completely true. UC Berkeley at least has tenure-track lecturers, now apparently mostly referred to as "Teaching Professors" (https://apo.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/teaching_profes...)
A random (old) job post for this: https://gsso.ce.gatech.edu/2022/01/12/tenure-track-teaching-...
Yes, I mentioned this type of examples in the second half of my post. Thankfully these are becoming more common.
Except that UC Berkeley most definitely is “in the rat-race to be "top-tier research institution" (probably more accurately described as one of the rat-race winners in many fields) - it’s definitely important that top-tier research institutions also provide quality teaching.
We do agree on this. My second sentence is exactly what you just said:
> Thankfully, many universities (even the prestigious ones) are now starting to hire more semi-permanent teaching-focused staff (and some even use the title professor for these).
As to what to do during your PhD: find an advisor that is happy to have one or two students focused on teaching and outreach (they would like to have that because when applying for grants it makes it easier for them to explain how they have broader impact, pointing to your work).