Careers: Money or happiness?

Gotta go with happiness at a job for me. After I graduate with my bachelor's degree I'm going to have to spend 4-6 years working on a PhD followed by a bit of time as a postdoc. Hoping to get a job as a professor shortly after that, though I could probably get equivalent pay (as well as shorter hours during a working day) working for a company such as Intel or Lockheed right after I finish my undergrad.

Also, sass, if you work at a smaller company you're more likely to get to do what you want to work on than at a larger company. Small companies are generally very focused in a specific market, and if you're working at a company whose interests overlap with your own then you're pretty set. At a large company they have loads of projects going on, only one or two of which you'll probably get to be a part of at any given time.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Sometimes small companies can actually pay pretty decently. They can only hire a few people, so they usually want to get the best talent they can get, and sometimes they're willing to offer the bit of extra money in order to get the talent. Small companies also tend to treat employees pretty well since it's much harder on them if an employee were to leave for another place than if Boeing were to lose one of their lower lab workers.

From what I've heard from my professors that worked at LANL (two or three at that one in particular) it's not a bad job by any means, but the lack of strong motivation can get frustrating at times. National labs have pretty constant funding, so they don't have nearly the problem that researchers in companies and universities do of having to consistently come up with results.

There's nowhere I can't reach.