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Comment by nerdherfer | Hacker News Reader

One side of this that bugs the crap out of me: I have a PhD in math and, after getting sick of teaching mediocre students with a palpable aversion to mathematics, I spent a couple of years applying for data science jobs and getting very few responses. The few interviews I got seemed to go well, but I had no offers and gave up on leaving academics. I have experience in software development (C++), I have a portfolio of statistics/data analysis projects in R/RStudio, but what I think is toxic is having spent so many years in academics; I finished my Phd in 2003. Being an over-40 academic feels like an insurmountable liability, even though I have many of the skills that people complain about being in short supply. And another thing: get off my lawn, you rowdy kids! :|

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It's never too late to switch.

I'd suggest figuring out which niche of data science most aligns with your personal interests and start there. Hiring managers don't discriminate based on "too many years in academia", it's more what's the reason they should hire YOU over candidate y?

Diehard animal lover? I bet the Sierra Club would love a statistician who could help them quantify how many elephants are being poached in Africa per year.

Interested in sports? Strava gets millions of data points a day, I'm sure they're looking for help finding signals in the noise.

Can't get enough of financial markets? Finance jobs all over the place for quants.

If your profile is too generic they'll see no good reason to hire you, but if you're passionate about X it can really work in your favor.

The job search is depressing but never give up hope.

As an over 40yr old, yes it's probably too late to switch. After 30 it was a shock to me getting turned down for jobs when I aced the technical interviews.

You might be more expensive than some of the youngins too. Just a possibility. I'm sure there could have been something else but new kids on the block often take less than they can.

You can be turned down for a job for a lot of reasons, personality fit is probably the No. 1 reason people are passed on (no data here, just my own anecdotal experience). I wouldn't assume it's ageism.

But that brings me back to my original point, you have to find a place where your personality and interests are a match, not just RandomJob.com.

If you have a higher degree in math, there is always another job out there waiting for you.

There definitely does seem to be a bias against academia in industry. From my experience applying to jobs, most employers seem to value 1 year in industry more than 5 years in academia. The data science field is flooded with academic applicants right now, don't believe the rumors. But it can happen, I know of physics postdocs over 40 who transitioned to industry, and grad students do it fairly often.

There might be a cost issue. Employers will see the PhD as raising salary expectations without adding value. The only real way to make inroads is to get a job related to your PhD and then do coding work.

Typical interview for higher jobs aren't focused on tests or quizzes. If that's what your getting your not applying to the right places - and there might not be many places.

> There might be a cost issue. Employers will see the PhD as raising salary expectations without adding value.

It could be true in some fields (biotech and life sciences, pharma/chemistry, "real" engineering, ...) but in math/CS?

Most companies hire PhD grads at one job grade/level above entry-level, i.e. it's typically not worth much more than a ~2 years head start salary-wise. If a candidate has spent 4/5 years gaining experience in the specific skill set you're hiring for, that's a bargain.

Phds might be relatively rare and so advantaged. But maybe not enough to warrant a second Phd if the first one is unrelated to the specific positions. I would add that to the GP otherwise.

As a mathematician outside of academia, stay there. Corporate America is not for our kind.

Care to elaborate why? Does the increased pay make up for it?

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