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I'm currently doing research in computer science. It's been nearly a year since I began working on my project, as a postdoc, but we haven't achieved any tangible results yet. Initially, I was working intensely and implementing whatever my advisor suggested. I was truly believing that he may have some good reasons behind his ideas. However, we recently missed a paper deadline because our results didn't measure up to the baselines.

About a week after that, my advisor spoke to me for about an hour, expressing his dissatisfaction with my lack of organization compared to him. He went over all the mistakes he believed I had made during that period. Honestly, the lack of good results was due to his wrong understanding of the problem. Implementing all the ad hoc suggestions he made without a solid scientific basis was incredibly challenging. Whenever we get closer to the results and we can spend hours on few examples that our model fail, he come up with completely new ideas and implementations that can take up to weeks.

To be precise, leading up to the deadline, I was putting in twelve-hour days, from 7 am to 7 pm, for almost nine months. However, now I feel like he's not as intelligent as he wants to be perceived, and genuinely, I've come to the conclusion that I have more intelligence than him, which I'd rather not to talk about the details. Overall, I find his ideas to be quite naive, and he lacks an analytical mind. He critiques everyone else's ideas while fully support all his own.

Do you think it's time for me to leave his lab? He is overall a good guy and answers all my technical questions. The center is one of the world's leading centers and a lot of famous senior people are around. So, I'm also concerned about how it might reflect on him in our center, as many advisors have their own labs, and gossips will spread all over. He's a perfectionist, a junior faculty, and doesn't publish as much as other faculty members, and I'm not convinced yet if I can develop a proper academic career with him.

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    Not addressing your specific question, but I don't see you acting as a postdoc - you don't do what your mentor tells you, you should be telling them what you are doing.
    – Jon Custer
    Commented May 7 at 19:32
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    " The center is one of the world's leading centers" tangentially relevant: do not think/hope you will stay there for a more senior position. Consider yourself lucky to be there as a PostDoc and milk out as much as you can from them, but do not work for their prestige (you will do that anyway, even if you focus on your own only).
    – EarlGrey
    Commented May 8 at 10:15
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    Irrespective of whether this is the right position for you (and it sounds like perhaps it's not), you should not think that you will be able to only work with people as or more intelligent than you. Part of being successful is working out how to work productively with people who are not as good/knowledgeable/skillful at you at something and still find that interaction useful
    – Ian Sudbery
    Commented May 8 at 10:51
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    You seem to be forgetting that you have a link to your webpage on your profile. Probably best to remove this link.
    – Adam Přenosil
    Commented May 9 at 1:43

4 Answers 4

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In a comment you state:

It's the dynamic issue. At some points, I was proposing ideas, and he started attacking them. After a few months, I stopped giving ideas and "only" implemented his and found him happier. So every week, he lists some ideas, wants, and asks me how they go. So the progress is not about me that not working or not getting results

Yes, that is the issue, you are acting like a very competent PhD, not as a PostDoc. Unfortunately this will not bring you neither new contracts nor happiness. It does not matter how your supervisor is, you do not have control on them, but you have control on yourself. Spend the rest of the contract building a network with other people (you are in a very good center, use that advantage!) and work on your own ideas.

Regarding the:

The center is one of the world's leading centers and a lot of famous senior people are around. So, I'm also concerned about how it might reflect on him in our center, as many advisors have their own labs, and gossips will spread all over.

It will reflect on the center and on your advisor X reputation as "advisor X has now a PostDoc vacancy to fill". You are peanuts to the centre reputation and to your advisor reputation.

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  • Thank you. This was a really good analysis of what's going on. It's also a matter of different "gradient" issue. My goal is to build my career, and hopefully his goal is to be a good/famous advisor. The only intersection in our goals could be the number of publications which is low in my point of view.
    – jda
    Commented May 8 at 13:51
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    Careful - there are many different roles that come under the heading "postdoc". Some are independant researchers doing their own thing. Others are employed specifically to work on somebody else's project. This does not sound like a good supervisor - and certainly not a good supervisor/supervisee relationship - but that doesn't mean that the OP can necessarily just do their own thing
    – Flyto
    Commented May 8 at 16:15
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    @Flyto - Indeed, looking at where the OP works and I mean the country, rather than the institution), I can tell that nearly all postdoctoral staff are hired to work on projects preagreed between the funder and the PI. Its very rare for postdocs to be able to be hired to just "do there own thing" - advisors may give employees more or less leeway in how to conduct the preagreed project, but research should be making progress in those specific areas. In my case I also encourage advisees to follow their won projects, but only after they've done the work I have promised to the funder.
    – Ian Sudbery
    Commented May 10 at 12:53
  • I am not suggestig doing things behind one advisor's back, but if a postdoc does not start thinking about their own projects/ideas from day 1, by the time the advisor give the postdoc some time to follow them, the postdoc will end their contract before anything can be done.
    – EarlGrey
    Commented May 13 at 5:28
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Is your advisor forcing you to work on their ideas? Or are they graciously offering you their ideas since you couldn't come up with any on your own?

In the former case, then you probably do want to find another position if possible. In some fields and settings, it is normal to hire a post-doc to work on a particular project, so "forcing you to work on their ideas" is not necessarily a red flag. But from what you describe, this is not working out: you do not respect your advisor's ideas and they are not happy with your progress. And it seems that you agree the progress is not good, so keeping things as they are is not good for your career either.

In the latter case, it is perhaps not fair to blame your advisor, nor necessary to find a new advisor. If your advisor graciously offered you an idea and you accepted it since you couldn't think of anything better, it's not really fair to blame your performance on your advisor's bad idea. True, a new supervisor might have better ideas that they could give you -- but there is no rule that you can only get ideas from your supervisor; any senior collaborator probably has lots of ideas and would jump at the chance to have a competent post-doc work on them.

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    I think the former is slightly more relevant to this situation. It's really not a matter of not having an idea. I have a PhD, and he was too just 4 years before me. It's the dynamic issue. At some points, I was proposing ideas, and he started attacking them. After a few months, I stopped giving ideas and "only" implemented his and found him happier. So every week, he lists some ideas, wants, and asks me how they go. So the progress is not about me that not working or not getting results. It's more about him not listening to people. He has one point in his mind and waits for you to finish.
    – jda
    Commented May 7 at 20:51
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    @jda Sounds like it's time to apply for a different post doc.
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented May 7 at 21:05
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    @jda "he was a PhD just 4 years before". It does not matter. He could even have been a PhD after you, if now they are a professor, they are above you. Please aff the comment " It's the dynamic issue. At some points, I was proposing ideas, and he started attacking them. After a few months, I stopped giving ideas and "only" implemented his and found him happier. So every week, he lists some ideas, wants, and asks me how they go. So the progress is not about me that not working or not getting results." to the question, instead of the deadline issue. It is very relevant
    – EarlGrey
    Commented May 8 at 10:11
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I understand it can be difficult but, for your career, the ideal path could be to keep things cool and publish with this PI one or two papers, and then move on to the next (postdoc) position.

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Considering that you are smarter than a young PI at a top research center is rather bold. I know it can be tempting but usually it is wrong.

I don't agree with some other answers claiming you're not acting as a postdoc - it really depends on the field and often the expectation from a postdoc is ineed to do what is being asked.

That being said science is often about trying many ad hoc solutions. The fact that you spent a lot of time on it doesn't necessarily mean that you did it in an optimal way.

But all this aside if you feel that things don't work well and you have a possibility to try another PI or lab - why not? Postdocs shouldn't be slaves and it is also PI's job to make a postdoc want to work for them. It sounds like yours is not great at it. There's always a lot of trade offs about such decisions though. Jumping between postdocs is pretty hard

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    I used to think I was smarter than my postdoctoral advisor. Every award imaginable, Nobel shortlist, member of the National Academy, and countless accolades later (for him), I can assure you that I am not/was not and likely will not ever be smarter than him. BUT I damn-well knew my specific project better than he did, so I will maintain my ego boost from that.
    – R1NaNo
    Commented May 10 at 17:42

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