Career effect of embargo on doctoral dissertation I have a question about how my dissertation embargo period would affect my future work, so please help and share your ideas. I will appreciate any thoughts here. 

My PhD degree is material science. I finished my PhD degree oral defense last week, and I am about to submit my final dissertation to the university. As for the dissertation embargo period, my university offers 3 options: (1) release immediately; (2) hold 2 or 5 yrs; (3) indefinite hold.

I personally want to embargo my dissertation for 5 years for publication reasons, but my PhD advisor recommended me for choosing indefinite hold first. He said because we are trying to apply for a patent which may take a really long time, and he also mentioned that some chapters are cooperated with industry partners and they don't want them to be released.  

Most of my chapters have been published in peer-reviewed journals, which means even if my dissertation is under embargo, people can still know what my Ph.D. research is about. 

But I still have a question: If I choose to embargo my dissertation indefinitely, will this affect my future career in a bad way?
I do not see that embargoing your dissertation will have any consequences for your career. Until recently, theses and dissertations only existed in hard copy: at least in the sciences, people expect to read your papers and not your thesis. In all likelihood, nobody will ever notice that you've embargoed it.

In any case, placing an embargo on the thesis just prevents the university library from distributing it. There is nothing to stop you sharing a copy with someone (e.g. a potential postdoc supervisor) if you wish to do so.