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Ask HN: Are there programming jobs for Math PhDs?

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11–20 of 42 posts

Re: Ask HN: Are there programming jobs for Math PhDs?

#11

Depending on your math interests you might find a coding career in computer vision, digital signal process or 3D graphics. And there's always the "quants" on Wall St and high frequency trading algorithms. Boring in opinion but there out there. You can always solve the experience problem. Just start coding.

Yeah, I've heard about the Wall Street programming options for mathematicians, but it is not a field that I'm interested in.

Actually, the CS dept at my uni has a big computer vision research program. I should go talk to them.

Thanks

Re: Ask HN: Are there programming jobs for Math PhDs?

#12
I figure a math Ph.D. who's poked at Haskell and Django will be smart enough to figure things out, and enough of (the right kind of) programming is more about figuring out new environments than knowing an existing environment very well. The one thing I don't see in your writeup is any concrete experience to look at. Do you have some awesome Django site that does something nifty, or a cleverly-designed Haskell application, that you can show off? For bonus points, can you get real users?

The Stripe jobs page (http://stripe.com/jobs) has some programming challenges that are way too ambitious for a usual couple-hour coding challenge, but definitely along the lines of a nontrivial, self-directed project that I'd like to see. Spend some time over a weekend making something like that, and it'll be worth noting to everyone you apply to. I've also seen great websites explaining mathematical concepts in intuitive, interactive ways; maybe there's a paper or something you like that you can turn into an instructional webapp.

Since you've got a couple of years before you'll be applying, another great option is to get involved with some open-source software, preferably something you use already or would want to use.

Re: Ask HN: Are there programming jobs for Math PhDs?

#13
I graduated with a Math Ph.D., and had little difficulty finding a job. Admittedly, I studied computational physics rather than Lie Algebras.

I wrote a blog post discussing how to leave academia and prepare for work in industry, you might find it helpful.

http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/leaving_academia.html

Re: Ask HN: Are there programming jobs for Math PhDs?

#14
If you can program you can get a job. I think in your case you probably need to show you can do something by putting it up on the web or Github. PhDs from certain universities will probably get an automatic job offer regardless.

The question is do you want a job in your field of expertise? I am not familiar enough with companies looking at practical applications of abstract algebra but it's probably not as abundant as companies looking for people with a focus on statistics. I don't think this will hinder you much though as the industry is looking for smart people despite whatever field you're in.

Maybe this sounds stupid because it may be obvious but I think a big advantage is if you're able to both read math papers and translate them into actual working algorithms. It doesn't seem like there are many who know how to do both.

Re: Ask HN: Are there programming jobs for Math PhDs?

#15

I graduated with a Math Ph.D., and had little difficulty finding a job. Admittedly, I studied computational physics rather than Lie Algebras. I wrote a blog post discussing how to leave academia and prepare for work in industry, you might find it helpful. http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/leaving_academia.html

Awesome! I went to check out your blog post, only to discover that I've already read it (and it contains a lot of helpful advice, thanks!).

Re: Ask HN: Are there programming jobs for Math PhDs?

#17

If you're near a major city in the western world, I think it will take you about two weeks to find a job. You can spend the first two weeks of that visiting your favourite national park or beachside resort. On the last Friday pick up the phone and call your three favourite tech companies in the area. In this market, in all likelihood, you will have an offer or three lined up by the next Monday afternoon.

You are exaggerating, OP has almost no experience in software development. And it is never that easy to get a job even if you are good. Nowadays it is more like 2-3 phone interviews, then a whole day series of face-to-face interviews, then HR interview if you are lucky. All of this takes up LOTS of time.

Re: Ask HN: Are there programming jobs for Math PhDs?

#19
I think anybody who needs smart people who can work with difficult domain problems will be happy to interview you. The chief worries with a PhD mathematician would be:

1. Will you take a pragmatic engineering approach when it's warranted, or will you be a cranky loner scribbling differential equations that supposedly prove which brace style is superior?

2. Will you be bored when you're not doing "real" math?

3. Will you demand a salary that exceeds your current ability to contribute?

Sounds like you are clear on all three counts. Now it's a matter of finding the right opportunities. If you want a job locally, meetups for topics like machine learning are a good place to find out where mathematically inclined programmers are working. (Though you might find that a lot of them are at meetups because they're bored at their current jobs.) If you're targeting a certain city, you can join local mailing lists for (e.g.) functional programming to which local employers might post job opportunities.

You can also check out job postings to see which high-tech companies are hiring programmers. A company that employs a lot of PhD scientists in other positions is more likely to hire PhDs into programming positions, if only for the sake of effective communication and a consistent culture. One of your biggest qualifications to work as a programmer in such an environment is that when the physicists or molecular biologists talk to you about the problems they're trying to solve, you are much better equipped to understand them and build good software for the company than a guy who didn't go beyond undergraduate linear algebra.

You're going to do fine. Finding your way into the right circles might be a slow process, though. Don't be afraid to take a boring job if you can't find a better one, because at least you'll get something to put on your resume, experience dealing with mundane crappy stuff that you might have avoided so far -- things like debugging, messy merge/rebase problems, and working with other people's retarded code. Good programmers have to be efficient at that stuff. Good programmers also have to be good at working with people, and the crappiest jobs have the most challenging people problems. It's better to be getting your hands dirty with that stuff than sitting at home sending out resumes and solving Project Euler problems. HOWEVER, don't lose faith that you are a highly valuable performer with rare capabilities even if that isn't true in the initial crappy jobs you find yourself in. Soon enough you'll find your way into the right companies, meet the right people, and you'll be fine.

Re: Ask HN: Are there programming jobs for Math PhDs?

#20
post #12

I figure a math Ph.D. who's poked at Haskell and Django will be smart enough to figure things out, and enough of (the right kind of) programming is more about figuring out new environments than knowing an existing environment very well. The one thing I don't see in your writeup is any concrete experience to look at. Do you have some awesome Django site that does something nifty, or a cleverly-designed Haskell applica…

Thanks, you don't see any concrete experience because there isn't anything worth showing. I'm working on some stuff right now to do just that. It's actually a webapp to allow teachers and students to communicate math effectively without having to know LaTeX and email pdfs.

From what I've heard so far, it sounds like there is definitely opportunities for me, and that means that I can justify spending time working on these types of projects over the next couple of years.

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