Ask HN: Making the switch from physics to industry? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Making the switch from physics to industry?

10 pointsphystoind10 comments

I am a theoretical physicist considering moving to industry, and I'm looking for advice regarding my options. Got my ph.d at a good foreign institute, and currently am in the middle of a 3-year postdoc at a top US university. I also have over 15 years of programming experience from before my academic career started, including being an early employee at a successful startup.

I am considering moving back to industry in the US (bay area preferrable). As far as I can tell the most relevant options are quantitative finance and data science. I am leaning toward finance because I've always found it fascinating, but truthfully I know little about either.

Any advice from people who have made a similar switch, or are working in these fields will be greatly appreciated! Some specific questions: Are there other options I should consider? What's your experience been like making the switch? Should I contact recruiters or try to find a job on my own? And more specifically: How likely is it to land a quantitative finance job in the bay area given my background + serious preparation?

Don't, just don't.

I moved from algorithmic optimisation and old fashioned stats and computer science into data science, I was mostly shoehorned into it back when it wasn't hot.

The money is ok, but the problems you solve tend to be extremely inane and unfulfilling, mostly having to do with clicks, products, and how to divert people's attention to generate revenue. Sometimes I really feel I am just contributing to the evil of the world.

There is an emerging market for data science into energy, one of the few industries where you can do some good. I have been trying to move into it but seems DS is extremely tied to web and finance...

I would stay in physics if I was you, it is an intrinsically beautiful science along with mathematics.

Disclaimer: I will leave the field soon and dedicate myself to bug farming, among other projects.

I recommend you go for data science rather than finance.

For one you'll have less to learn to catch up (ML = prob theory + modelling skills). Also "data science" is a much broader skill that is in demand in many industries, while to apply your modelling skills to finance requires that you join one of the dirty banks, dirty hedge funds, or other dirty system construct.

This is a good book to have on the shelf: https://www.cs.ubc.ca/~murphyk/MLbook/

also on topic http://p.migdal.pl/2015/12/14/sci-to-data-sci.html

Thank you! As a followup question, looking at glassdoor it seems that data science salaries are lower on average than programming salaries (at least in the bay area). Is this actually the case? Is it also true for someone going into data science with a physics background?

I'm asking because if a background in science is necessary for doing data science then I would expect salaries to be higher than for programming roles. This is simply because I'm guessing there are fewer scientists than programmers around. What am I missing here?

It's easier to make money hiring a programmer than hiring a data scientist. That's all.

Please do consider medical physics. We have a former string theorist in our team who does great Monte Carlo simulations of medical linacs. I myself have an experimental physics background and use my knowledge in product development in the radiation oncology field in Palo Alto. APS has a local link service in which you can meetup with local physicists in Bay Area and talk to them about industrial positions.

Please consider Visual Effects. There's always a need for "brainiacs" to bring the latest, fastest, smartest way to render/simulate/store the visual effects in the latest Pixar/SuperHero movie. It might just be a short contract for a few months or a year. Don't be afraid if you don't have much art/design experience, there are other specialists for that. And in all reality the day to day work of lighters, animators, etc is more matching the design specs of the director.

But maybe that's not your thing, just putting it out there as some of the biggest and oldest vfx studios are in the SF Bay, namely Pixar, ILM, Dreamworks, Tippett, and well honestly little young studios might be interested too.

www.creativeheads.net Is a clearing house for all kinda of vfx and games jobs.

One caveat here: the pay at VFX shops tends to be lower than the industry in general.

AND the work can be more sporadic AND be migratory.

I recommend the Insight Data Science Fellowship. http://insightdatascience.com/ You can read Ethan Rosenthal's blog about the transition from physics to industry. http://blog.ethanrosenthal.com/

I recommend you go for data science as Ivan.

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