Does working in a project without being a first author of any of its papers help my career path in academia This question is related to my previous one. Basically, I'm working in the research project as the only PhD student, other members are post-doc and lecturers. After discussing with my supervisor and other investigators, it is clear that there is no funding left for me even though they want to. My supervisor wants me to continue working but lets me decide if it is what I want or not.

Personally, I want to continue working because:


It's nice to mention about working in the funded project in my CV.
I have an opportunity to work with many senior researchers and lecturers who can write reference letters for me.


However, since I'm only in charge of performing experiments to test/evaluate ideas of others, there is no chance for me to be the first author of any papers produced by the project. For all the papers that I help writing, I only write the experiment section, while other sections are written by more senior members.

So, I want to ask if it helps for my career path in academia if I work in a project with no chance to be the first author of any papers produced by it.

Update:


My field is computer science in which the order of authors matters.
The project will take more than a year to finish, so I wonder if it's better
if I focus all my time on my PhD and private life instead. Because at
the moment, working in it is like doing a part time job without
salary.
Does working in a project without being a first author of any of its papers help my career path in academia


Yes, it helps, but first-author publications help more. Find a way to leverage your work on this project towards a first-author publication, talk to your advisor about switching projects, or find a new advisor.