Drawing upon data on the entire population of French STEM PhD students, we explore the factors leading PhDs to pursue independent research from their supervisors during the PhD and how independence links to their career outcomes. We find that independence is significantly associated with students' and supervisors' characteristics. Moreover, students' independence predicts the probability of starting an academic career and, conditional on starting an academic career, a higher number of articles published after the PhD period. However, the higher number of articles comes at the cost of receiving fewer citations and having a lower probability of obtaining an academic position outside France.