It is possible, but in my case it would make it quite hard to work with my current team.
The idea of going to a more chill team never occurred to me, but it does sound like a solution. Then I could maybe receive similar compensation but allow more time for studying on my own.
Thank you for this response. You went through options in both sides of the fence and that's something I wanted to hear.
I was considering a PhD in ETH or EPFL. Going deep is mostly what I've been thinking. Actually getting an understanding and contributing to the field is more important to me than just working on something more interesting. My current job is already on something interesting but the actual work I end up doing is on the surface level, often avoiding any kind of innovation to minimize the risk. The time I can spend on learning is also way more limited than what I could get if I was doing dedicated research.
In the end, I'm not sure if I want to end up in academia. It's hard to know if something is a fit without trying. The article you linked is a very helpful sample of what to expect.
One of the issues is creative energy. When most of my day is spent working on working for my job, I find it really hard to do research on things I'm interested in.
I'm in a rather demanding team with an on-call rotation, so I'm not finding it possible to invest in actually doing my own things unless I overwork myself.
The idea of going to a more chill team never occurred to me, but it does sound like a solution. Then I could maybe receive similar compensation but allow more time for studying on my own.