A PhD is a license to do deep research. Deep research careers are very rare, but for the right kind of person, they're great. However, deep research by definition means it probably won't work, and there's just a lot more money in doing things that will probably work vs things that probably won't. So it helps to be extremely talented at deep research if you want to pursue the PhD.
Also, most engineering PhD's are bogus because most engineering "research" is actually not deep research - it's building prototypes that aren't quite useful but not quite that novel or interesting either. If you're in a PhD program and you're not doing something really interesting and fundamental, you're definitely in a tough spot.
Also, most engineering PhD's are bogus because most engineering "research" is actually not deep research - it's building prototypes that aren't quite useful but not quite that novel or interesting either. If you're in a PhD program and you're not doing something really interesting and fundamental, you're definitely in a tough spot.