With experience, physicists and astronomers may gain greater independence in their work, as well as larger research budgets.
Those in university positions may also gain tenure with more experience..
Experience is essential to becoming an astrophysicist, as PhD students are required to work on several post-doctoral appointments once completing their studies.
While it's possible to gain employment with minimal experience, astrophysicist jobs are often highly competitive..
The unemployment rate for astrophysicists is low—less than two percent (source).
Of course, that might be because there are so few of them out there..
Some government agencies that employ astrophysicists include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the U.S.
Naval Observatory, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, known as Fermilab, a physics laboratory..
The multidisciplinarity of the workforce at NASA (astrophysicists, astrochemists, chemists, physicists, planetary scientists, theoreticians, astronomers) makes it a unique environment for doing Laboratory Astrophysics research..
The job duties of a research assistant in astrophysics are similar to those in other fields but tend to be more specialised because they require knowledge of astronomy
For example, a research assistant might help develop new telescopes or instruments
