I also worked at LBNL in the same department as dekhn. In hindsight it was a pretty nice gig, it did have great work life balance, and the problems that we solved were interesting. The people and culture was great. It was my first real job.

Shipping software at the lab usually meant manually creating a .tar.gz file and uploading it to our web page.

Now I work at a medium sized ad-tech company in industry, which is better for me, in terms of pay, autonomy, and solving interesting problems(quickly!!). The work life balance isn't as nice as the lab.

I think that the LBNL could be a great place to work for a few years before I retire.