I would use your software skills to get in the door as a software engineer, then weasel into a sciencey position. That is: 1. Find a company that has non-software jobs that you like. Look at what companies advertise on their web sites; go to a few conferences (or watch talks) to see if some talks strike you with "ah, I can and want to do this" vibe; reach out to folks you went to grad school with, etc. 2. Apply and j…
Ask HN: How do I bridge the gap between PhD and SWE experiences?
61–69 of 69 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do I bridge the gap between PhD and SWE experiences?
#62I succeeded at this. My academic physics career petered out, then I stumbled into an industry role with almost as much physics as I was doing in my quantum mechanics postdoc. The jobs you're looking for are rare, but they do exist. There must be a bunch of them in this project, for example: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-22/lake-george-earthquak... In my case, the unicorn factor worked both ways. The job was adv…
Re: Ask HN: How do I bridge the gap between PhD and SWE experiences?
#63Consider laboratory automation? I work in that now. I am going through the same issue as you after studying science (there are many of us!). Jobs rarely overlap, wanting both skillsets. Am I ever going to do this scientific work I learned about? I feel entering this area has been progress. I'm on the 'science' side right now, after doing CAD, software and firmware for a few years. The previous robots I made were not…
Re: Ask HN: How do I bridge the gap between PhD and SWE experiences?
#64Top-tier hedge funds are always looking for PhDs with engineering background, it’s a great combo of doing original research and being able to productionalize it
Re: Ask HN: How do I bridge the gap between PhD and SWE experiences?
#65Did you do any serious simulations work? If so, machine learning. (PhD in mineral physics, staff ML engineer at a FAANG.)
Re: Ask HN: How do I bridge the gap between PhD and SWE experiences?
#66“Bridging the gap between PhD and SWE” would be a good subtitle for my career. I started out writing software for scientists, psychologists, first at a university, then a small company. After eight years of that I went to grad school and got a PhD in CS (ML/AI), and did a postdoc, before going into industry, and eventually landed a role in what was then called “data mining”, later “data science”, then “machine learni…
Re: Ask HN: How do I bridge the gap between PhD and SWE experiences?
#67Did you do any serious simulations work? If so, machine learning. (PhD in mineral physics, staff ML engineer at a FAANG.)
Not sure about seriousness but I did some simulation work regarding seismic wave propagation. Would that apply?
Re: Ask HN: How do I bridge the gap between PhD and SWE experiences?
#68“Bridging the gap between PhD and SWE” would be a good subtitle for my career. I started out writing software for scientists, psychologists, first at a university, then a small company. After eight years of that I went to grad school and got a PhD in CS (ML/AI), and did a postdoc, before going into industry, and eventually landed a role in what was then called “data mining”, later “data science”, then “machine learni…
> I’ve been out of the job market for 15 years now Wow - that's a long time at one company, or being without a job. Could you share more on that? Simple curiosity, thanks.
After a few years I got tired and somewhat bored with being a manager, and asked my director to move back to a senior IC role and he facilitated that for me.
TBH, I have always had my doubts about the narrative that short tenures are the norm in tech. It has always sounded to me like a misreading of the statistical distribution: if you were to histogram the length of tenure of every job (person+company) in tech over some period, of course there would be a big hump at the left end. That's natural, because they are short. I myself have three jobs of less than two years and one each of six, eight, and 15 (if you count grad school as a job). So that's 12 years in the the four shorter stints and 23 in the two longer ones.
Re: Ask HN: How do I bridge the gap between PhD and SWE experiences?
#69“Bridging the gap between PhD and SWE” would be a good subtitle for my career. I started out writing software for scientists, psychologists, first at a university, then a small company. After eight years of that I went to grad school and got a PhD in CS (ML/AI), and did a postdoc, before going into industry, and eventually landed a role in what was then called “data mining”, later “data science”, then “machine learni…
I went through something similar. Ended up under-emphasizing my science background because I noticed that it turned people off.
When I said I was disappointed when I didn't get the job in the story above, what I meant was that I was disappointed that they didn't offer me the SWE job, and I kicked myself for telling them I didn't want it. But really I only knew that I wanted it after I didn't get it.