I've been at my new job for almost four months now. After I had completed my degree, my advisors at the university quickly offered me a position. When I heard back e.g. from Google where I had submitted an application, I had already started my new job.

So from my current point of view it was the best thing to do:

• Challenge. It's a total brain job, which makes it lots of fun. I'm not fixing peoples computers or broken PHP hacks, but I'm bending my mind on new algorithms pushing the limits of science. Before I started I was like "actually I'd like to make new things work for everybody, get them out into to wild". But I can be just as happy with getting things work in a lab context, actually.
• Learning. I keep on learning. Not only on the science level, but writing articles, advising people for their thesis, teaching, ... they all contribute to personality.
• People. The colleagues and my "boss" are fantastic. No infighting, competitions for certain positions or so.
• Little stress. University work is quite regulated, but that also means it basically is a 9-to-6 job. In internet startups, consulting, IT administration, etc. you often have irregular working hours, 24h standby and such things. Here I can reliably plan my evenings (dancing!) and I'm not taking my work home, but when I'm home all I have to do is relax for the next day. Of course there is the occasional exception when a conference deadline is coming up.
• Reasonable deadlines. Conference deadlines are different than product deadlines. They're just there, but not pushed in a way to make them unachievable without overtime.
• Payment. It's regulated, so it's not as much as the high tech companies would pay or I could probably earn freelance, but it's reliable and definitely enough for me to live on (I don't spend much anyway, I don't have expensive hobbys. So I end up saving a large share of it.)
• Degree. In three years, I should end up with a PhD degree.
• Office. The university offices are good, and centrally located. We can get some good food nearby, have a nice huge park, a Biergarten, ...