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Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers

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Re: Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers

#51

Post by koolba »

physcab wrote: post #22
tmoot wrote: post #11

I'm a physics phd student, but I did my undergrad in cs+physics at well known school in the midwest. I really regret going to grad school for physics, I gave up a lot of earning potential, time to develop new skills and I've forgotten a lot of my CS background. Most methods in my area have already been developed and the pressure to publish (pushy advisor, several projects not producing the intended results, and propo…

I was a Physics undergrad+ Physics / Materials Science PhD and I ended up just quitting 4 years into my PhD. You can do it too. You don't owe your advisor anything and you've definitely put in your indentured servitude. I ended up getting a job as a data analyst / scientist and never looked back. You can work on interesting problems, use the same experimental design knowledge and methods, and get paid $100k more than…

Four years? Is it common for a Physics PhD to take that long? I thought most fields are closer to two years.

Re: Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers

#52

Post by crazypyro »

jschwartzi wrote: post #32
randlet wrote: post #20

This is a pretty common career path I think once people realize that finding a well paying physics gig is much much tougher than just becoming a developer. Every physicist has at least some programming experience and are generally adept at problem solving. Coding was always way more fun than doing 4th year/grad school level physics for me too. Also, it is especially tough to get a job if you're a mediocre physicist (…

The American Physical Society maintains numbers on career paths for their student members, and less than 5 percent end up with a Physicist job title. Most end up in the career paths you list.

For anyone curious, here's a one year phd employment survey for physics: https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/employmen...

803 responses, 297 in potentially full-time positions.

62% (of all physics phds employed at potentially full-time positions) in non-physics field, break down by industry:

Engineering - 20%

Computer software - 14%

Business or Finance - 11%

Other sciences - 8%

Education - 2%

Medical services - 2%

Other - 5%

Re: Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers

#54

Post by loarake »

koolba wrote: post #51
physcab wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a Physics undergrad+ Physics / Materials Science PhD and I ended up just quitting 4 years into my PhD. You can do it too. You don't owe your advisor anything and you've definitely put in your indentured servitude. I ended up getting a job as a data analyst / scientist and never looked back. You can work on interesting problems, use the same experimental design knowledge and methods, and get paid $100k more than…

Four years? Is it common for a Physics PhD to take that long? I thought most fields are closer to two years.

People who go straight from undergrad to PhD often take 5+ years (in the states and Canada, at least), especially in the experimental fields

Re: Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers

#55

Post by atmaweapon »

randlet wrote: post #20

This is a pretty common career path I think once people realize that finding a well paying physics gig is much much tougher than just becoming a developer. Every physicist has at least some programming experience and are generally adept at problem solving. Coding was always way more fun than doing 4th year/grad school level physics for me too. Also, it is especially tough to get a job if you're a mediocre physicist (…

once people realize that finding a well paying physics gig is much much tougher than just becoming a developer.

Unfortunately, becoming a developer is a short-term optimal choice that you pay for in the long term.

The 40-year-old physicist has tenure and can work on whatever he wants. As far as his peers are concerned, he's mid-career. The 40-year-old programmer is considering plastic surgery so he can still get hired in the Valley.

The people who become developers find out that they don't have permission to get a day older than 35 unless they can make it into management. And if you were going to be a manager anyway, you might as well have gotten an MBA in your mid-20s, and then you'd be making far more than the developer would even dream of.

Coding was always way more fun than doing 4th year/grad school level physics for me too.

Programming is a lot of fun, but most software jobs aren't programming intensive. The coding is trivial and a high school student could do most of the work. The hard part is dealing with tickets, PMs, and unnecessary meetings.

Re: Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers

#56

Post by madengr »

thesz wrote: post #9

Physicists are one hell of science and engineering badasses. I know many physicists who became hardware engineers and even software engineers when they needed it. I know no software/hardware engineer who became physicist.

"I know no software/hardware engineer who became physicist."

Sure, due to the premise of the article; no pay in it.

Re: Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers

#57

Post by URSpider94 »

koolba wrote: post #51
physcab wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a Physics undergrad+ Physics / Materials Science PhD and I ended up just quitting 4 years into my PhD. You can do it too. You don't owe your advisor anything and you've definitely put in your indentured servitude. I ended up getting a job as a data analyst / scientist and never looked back. You can work on interesting problems, use the same experimental design knowledge and methods, and get paid $100k more than…

Four years? Is it common for a Physics PhD to take that long? I thought most fields are closer to two years.

Four years would be on the very short end these days. Most doctoral programs in math and the sciences are a MINIMUM of four years, with average terms creeping up to 6. Never say never, but a 2-year doctorate is pretty much unheard-of.

Some people think of this as 2 years for a Masters and 2 more for PhD, but in practice most hard science programs don't really offer a true Masters program. When I got my doctorate, a bunch of us figured out we could apply to get our MS diploma after we finished our coursework -- hardly anyone in the PhD program had ever bothered before. We all got them and put them on our desks as a kind of inside joke.

Re: Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers

#58

Post by URSpider94 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #45
URSpider94 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, a tip -- if you genuinely want to learn more about something, don't start by saying it "seems bogus". Not the best way to open up a discussion. On to your question: It's hard to pin down the exact root cause, but it seems (in my case at least) to stem from being an outsider -- a y in a sea of x's. When everyone else doing your job has a specific attribute that you don't, you can start to wonder whether you rea…

But, see, for every single person in the standup, there's something. "If they figure out that I'm not as smart", or "that I don't really understand Android", or Java, or Eclipse, or databases, or that I went to a lesser school, or... Here's a group of people. Compared to each one of them, I know less about something . It's really easy to go from that to feeling like I know less about what I'm supposed to be doing tha…

Yes, of course -- that's why it's called Impostor SYNDROME. If you think about it logically, of course you belong there, and everyone has their own foibles.

Re: Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers

#59

Post by fsloth »

tmoot wrote: post #11

I'm a physics phd student, but I did my undergrad in cs+physics at well known school in the midwest. I really regret going to grad school for physics, I gave up a lot of earning potential, time to develop new skills and I've forgotten a lot of my CS background. Most methods in my area have already been developed and the pressure to publish (pushy advisor, several projects not producing the intended results, and propo…

I was 6 months into my PhD in physics - just been given assignment based on obscure Austrian codebase and a quick briefing based on nature article ("Let's discuss when you have something - seeya!") when an opportunity in software came about (a graphics gig - the last thing I wanted to do was write CRUD apps). Never looked back. I was ridiculously underequipped in theoretical as well as practical side beyond linear algebra and C++ but we had a great team and I had the chance to learn quickly.

One thing - if you decide to move to industry, make sure the first years you can learn from someone more talented than you - even if informally. This is critical, software is a craft.

Re: Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers

#60

Post by crazypyro »

koolba wrote: post #51
physcab wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a Physics undergrad+ Physics / Materials Science PhD and I ended up just quitting 4 years into my PhD. You can do it too. You don't owe your advisor anything and you've definitely put in your indentured servitude. I ended up getting a job as a data analyst / scientist and never looked back. You can work on interesting problems, use the same experimental design knowledge and methods, and get paid $100k more than…

Four years? Is it common for a Physics PhD to take that long? I thought most fields are closer to two years.

Luckily, AIP has a survey for this as well!

https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/graduate/...

Only 3% of surveyed physics PhDs took 4 years, nobody took less and 6-7 years was average.

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