
Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers - electic
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/move-coders-physicists-will-soon-rule-silicon-valley/
======
randlet
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 (like me) whereas there are very many
jobs available for fair to middling programmers (like me).

Don't want to guess at numbers but my gut instinct & experience tells me that
very few physicists end up doing physics and most end up in finance, software,
and hardware.

~~~
throw_away_777
On average, a tenured physics professor will graduate a bit more than 10 PhD
students over the course of their career. Physics as a field is not growing,
so at most 10% of PhD students become professors. If you don't become a
tenured professor there are very few jobs that aren't postdocs, and even if
you wanted to you can't keep doing postdocs forever.

~~~
jessriedel
Do you have a source for the rough number 10? I'd have guessed the average is
more, even if the _median_ is 10ish.

~~~
smallnamespace
It really depends on the field -- fields with labwork tend to have more PhDs
per professor because there's an incentive to get cheap labor.

~~~
jabl
[https://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html](https://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html)
claims it's about 15. Though that article was written in 1993, it seems (good
read in general, btw).

Still, it seems low IMHO. Unless you start counting at the point where the
person gains full tenure rather than from the point where they become some
kind of "group leader", "assistant professor", or such "tenure track" type
position?

~~~
jessriedel
I think the relevant number is the fraction of PhDs that go one to a position
that mints new PhDs. (That's where the multiplier comes from.) So that almost
never includes non-tenure-track positions, but does include assistant
professors who don't go on to make tenure.

------
tmoot
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 proposal writing) has always been hampering away at my
free time to think. I really dislike this system. At the same time, I'm sure
exists in industry too (never had a real job). I'm not going lie, I feel a bit
trapped, but I'm still a fairly positive person.

In the sciences, grad school is sold as a necessity but I'm starting to think
this is a way of fueling the ivory tower.

I realize that this is a bit incoherent/ranty, but whatever. :)

~~~
StClaire
You don't have to stay. Look for development jobs or internships for the Fall
semester. If you like it more than what you're doing now, don't go back. If
you decide that you want to get into the physics, the go back. Plenty of grad
students take a semester or two off and go finish their PhDs. If your advisor
blows a gasket, well, you can probably do better somewhere else anyway.

I know a lot of graduate students and early professors who have a fear of
private industry. I think they all know they can make more money outside of
academia, but they don't realize they can work fewer hours and not have worry
about a bad tenure committee screwing up their careers. A bad boss can make my
work life suck, but he'll need to work hard to completely nuke my career.

Anyway, I understand how you feel. Despite my lackluster GPA, a couple
professors want me to go on for a masters in math or statistics. You should
see their faces contort when I tell them I don't want to go to graduate school
or I don't want a career in academia.

You spent your life in academia, surrounded by people who spent their lives in
academia, who have surrounded themselves with people who spent their lives in
academia. Get some fresh air, fill your bank account, and then decide.

~~~
mng2
I agree, I realized the truth of your second-to-last sentence sometime during
grad school. These people have played the academia game and it worked out for
them, and their sense of self-worth and prestige is tied to their standing
inside the system. Of course, the academia game is a lot more difficult to
play these days.

------
amai
While being a student a physics professor told me:

"Study physics now. Because later when you have a job, you might get paid to
learn using some software tool or a new programming language. But no company
will ever send you into a quantum mechanics lecture. "

He was right.

~~~
throwaway61AR
No he wasn't. At the google X labs we had a quantum mechanics lecture from a
guest speaker, literally only a couple of months back.

~~~
eanzenberg
1 lecture at arguably undergrad level vs. 30 lectures (2 semesters) of grad
level qm

------
NumberSix
This migration of physicists to the Silicon Valley and computer industry is
not new. It has been true at least since the first big physics employment
bubble crashed in the late 1960's, early 1970's. The post-Sputnik boom in
physics degrees and grad students produced a huge surplus of physicists by the
late 1960's. Dennis Ritchie started at Bell Labs in 1967. Back in the 60's,
70's, early 80's a fair number of physicists decamped for Bell Labs, mostly to
work on computer and telecommunications related activities.

A high profile example is Emanuel Derman, author of My Life as a Quant (2004)
and later books, who worked at Bell Labs from 1980 to 1985 before moving on to
Wall Street. He mentions quite a number of other physicists at Bell Labs at
the same time.

Most physicists end up in some sort of software development. The high profile
"quant" jobs are actually rather rare and hard to get. The Wall Street firms
are typically going after very strong physicists, especially theoretical
physicists like Derman.

Nathan Myhrvold of Microsoft and Intellectual Ventures fame (or infamy) has a
Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Princeton. Did not go to Wall Street. :-)

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produced a huge surplus of experimental
particle physics (high energy physics) Ph.D.'s with no jobs in the field.
Experimental particle physics involves large amounts of software development
for data acquisition, instrument monitoring and control, and data analysis,
mostly in C and C++, although there is still some "legacy" FORTRAN software.
The heyday of FORTRAN in physics was a long time ago.

Although there have been attempts to use neural networks and other machine
learning methods in particle physics, the workhorse of data analysis in the
field is Ronald Fisher's maximum likelihood estimation and classification --
primarily estimation of parameters such as the mass and width of the Higgs
Boson. The discovery of the Higgs was a maximum likelihood analysis.

Although it is undoubtedly possible to map maximum likelihood onto neural
networks, in practice they are different. Neural networks are an attempt to
simulate the low level structure of the neurons in the brain and solve
problems by brute force fitting of data to models with huge numbers of
adjustable parameters. In contrast, maximum likelihood involves attempts to
understand the phenomenon under study and model it as a small number of
functions corresponding to higher level concepts such as the Higgs Boson. A
neural net could exactly fit the Higgs Boson peak yet never produce or confirm
a physical model of what causes the peak.

~~~
batbomb
Part of that is because there was only physics and math degrees up to around
the 60s. There wasn't really EE or CS, and even when there was, most the
professors were originally trained as physicists.

~~~
NumberSix
There were definitely many EE degrees. Electrical technology dates back to the
telegraph, telephones, lights, early electric power in the 1800's followed by
radio in the 1920's. Richard Feynman started out as a EE at MIT in 1934 and
was one of only a small number of students who got a Physics degree in his
class. Most MIT students got EE and other engineering degrees. EE was hot in
the 1930's It is true that CS is a new field in the 1960's and 1970's.

------
KKKKkkkk1
Physicists have been taking jobs as software engineers since the 90s. Career-
wise, physics is the comparative literature of the exact sciences.

~~~
circlefavshape
/me raises hand

Degree in physics, working software for 20 years and still feel like an
impostor ... not that I remember any physics at this stage

~~~
ythn
Impostor syndrome seems bogus but only because I've never experienced it and
therefore can't understand it. Why do you feel like an impostor? The world is
analog, not digital. There's no rite of passage that will suddenly switch you
from being an "impostor" to being "legitimate". I've met EE majors who turned
out to be better software developers than CS majors and vice versa.

~~~
URSpider94
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 really belong in that role. The literal
feeling is, "One of these days, I'll say the wrong acronym in stand-up, the
rest of the team is going to figure out that I'm just winging this Agile Scrum
thing, and that will be that."

That can mean being the only physicist in a company of CS grads, or the only
woman on an all-male engineering team.

Being in a job where you're always learning, received no formal training, and
where the expectations are fluid can amplify the feeling, since there's no
yardstick against which to compare your performance. If you're a fast learner,
it can be hard to believe you've gotten as good at something as people who had
years of training/have been doing it for years.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
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_ than everyone else.

I don't really experience this, I suspect because of arrogance. I'm not sure
that's really an improvement, though...

~~~
URSpider94
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.

------
roymurdock
_Anderson left Harvard before getting his PhD because he came to view the
field much as Boykin does—as an intellectual pursuit of diminishing returns.
But that’s not the case on the internet. “Implicit in ‘the internet’ is the
scope, the coverage of it,” Anderson says. “It makes opportunities are much
greater, but it also enriches the challenge space, the problem space. There is
intellectual upside.”_

Was thinking of pursuing masters/PhD in economics but have heard/read a lot
along the same lines of an intellectual pursuit with diminishing returns both
in terms of salary and real world impact.

The most useful thing I've done on Twitter is follow a bunch of economists and
professors who are constantly debating current econ thinking/papers. There are
a few I really respect, but for the most part both the academic environment
for PhD level economists seems kind of toxic to me as an outsider.

Been thinking a lot recently about how my generation (I'm 24) is going to have
to be a lot more practical due to economic realities...

~~~
fnbr
I did a master's in econometrics and that was my experience. In the last year
of my undergrad, I took a course in machine learning that seemed to have way
more intellectual rigor than any of the material covered in grad school.

At one point, I mentioned to the professor that I was concerned that the model
he had presented was overfitting, and he had no understanding of what the term
meant. I think that economics studies fascinating problems (how do people make
choices? What are the optimal choices for policy makers to make?) but
economists approach the problem completely wrong.

~~~
sjg007
With deep learning overfitting has been thrown out of the window..

~~~
fnbr
Obviously overfitting is always a concern, but deep learning has (when done
correctly) found ways to mitigate concerns about overfitting.

Dropout, for instance, or k-fold cross validation.

------
asafira
Whoa! I am actually currently in a physics PhD program, in my last 1-2 years,
and have been pursuing internship opportunities for the summer. For me, I've
actually wanted to get my PhD in physics and then work in tech for as long as
I can remember (so it's not primarily that I feel like the academic job market
is too competitive for me, or doesn't pay enough, but those are pretty good
reasons, too...) .

I actually have often found it awkward to fit into the usual computer science
bins that companies organize projects into. In addition to a hefty amount of
data analysis and software engineering, my PhD has required knowledge from a
wide variety of different types of engineering, including optics, microwave
engineering, and semiconductor fabrication. Combining everything into a 1-page
resume, I've found it's not super obvious where my placement would be within
most companies. I am currently in the team-matching phase for a google
internship, for example, but haven't heard anything.

For those that are getting themselves in the door, do you have any tips?

~~~
emcq
Craft your resume around the job you want. Add in the other details to fit. If
you dont know what you want, do more internships, soul searching, or perhaps
even explore career coaches.

The best thing getting my food in the door in silicon valley was to move
there; quite a few opportunities for qualified candidates afterwards. Even
research labs at Stanford or Cal still value hiring the broad experiences you
describe and could be a foot in the door.

------
zitterbewegung
Wow, too much data science/ machine learning hype into one article. If you are
a Physicist that can make machine learning models doesn't that make you a
coder also? Furthermore, they give two examples who weren't Computer Science
students but I'm sure I can find a counterexample to this.

------
thesz
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.

~~~
musgravepeter
Depending on what "being a physicist" means, I did. Went from EE undergrad to
physics PhD. Then worked in s/w but still tinker on physics projects on the
side.

GRTensorIII
([https://gitlab.com/grtensor/grtensor/wikis/home](https://gitlab.com/grtensor/grtensor/wikis/home))

An iOS/Android app for Three Body simulations (Three Body) and a Unity gravity
simulator (Gravity Engine).

I would have loved to make a living wage in physics but the post-doc path is
badly paid.

~~~
thesz
You have not spent couple of tens of years building EE career and then turn to
physics. I am speaking of fully developed specialists in the field - well into
their thirties and even forties.

------
zxcvvcxz
Does anyone else think that general programming education (not necessarily
computer science) is overrated?

I much rather hire people that I know can think in both in terms of
fundamental logical principles, and who understand the scientific method,
which comes up more than one expects in business. For example, I've seen
physicists run much better marketing analytics than "growth hackers".

And who cares if someone can cross-off a list of generic programming
language/frameworks? If you need that specific of a cog in your machine, the
position probably isn't that innovative and you're better off outsourcing. Or
hire someone smart and eager, pay them decently, and they'll learn what they
need, if they're so inclined.

~~~
asafira
How would you recommend searching for those sorts of roles that aren't just
cog-in-a-machine but require a good bit of technical ability and creativity on
the job? No offense, but if you look at most job listings (even on hacker
news), they often specifically mention technologies and languages one should
already have a background in, and it's definitely not clear they would take
someone that has succeeded in differing technical challenges.

~~~
zxcvvcxz
A lot of employers will list too much stuff just because it's an ingrained
habit. In my experience, both as an employee and employer who used to do this
to some extent, these requirement lists are fairly 'negotiable'.

If you have the top 2-3 things they'd need (e.g. CS algorithms knowledge +
some scripting language + some database experience), and are otherwise a good
applicant, go ahead and apply with the mindset being that you'd have no
problem picking up other frameworks X,Y,Z. Of course, spend an evening to take
a look at them and be confident enough to make that the case.

------
ExcessiveAccts
I don't get it.

I'm studying physics because I want to help shed light on the mysteries of
reality.

It might be hard to get a job in physics and achieve that, but it's a hell of
a lot harder to get in a job in _software development_ and achieve that.

Despite this, all I'm reading is optimism about how well-paying and
interesting software development is for physicists. So what? If those were my
primary concerns, I wouldn't have studied physics in the first place!

I get the hidden impression that the meaningfulness of science -- pursuing the
truth, the nature of the universe -- is being swept under the rug because it's
no longer paying the bills. That's a goddamn _tragedy_ , not the cause for
celebration this article is making it out to be.

~~~
FiatLuxDave
Don't give up. It is possible to have a career in physics. It's not the easy
path: academia has its many challenges, and software is in it's glory days.
But the Universe is still there, and there is still so much to learn.

------
emcq
There was a time before computer science degrees existed. Guess who were some
the first folks to use computers and pioneer our field? Physicists and
mathematicians!

Von Neumann, Feynman, Metropolis, Vapnik, Babagge, Lovelace, Turing, Church,
Hopper, Brooks...

------
redsymbol
Anecdata: As a software engineer who studied physics before C.S., it feels
like I've had a massively unfair advantage my entire career. Served me very
well.

~~~
wwweston
Can you describe the advantage?

(Was within a hair of a physics minor before I studied C.S., but might have
wiped out the advantage by switching to Mathematics?)

~~~
sampo
Most of the CS students don't like math, so CS teaching has developed a
tradition of only the minimal need-to-know math exposure. But then you have to
always operate at the very edge of your math competence, because that is all
you were taught. If you have a solid math foundation, then most of the math
concepts you face in CS are well within your comfort zone.

------
rubidium
No real "news" here.

AIP does many nice studies of where physics PhD's end up.

One of the hardest challenge as a Physics PhD in industry is finding
interesting problems. See fig 2.2 for reporting on that:
[https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/phd-
plus-...](https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/phd-
plus-10/PhysPrivSect.pdf)

------
renlo
I'm working on a Masters in CS right now and have been interested in heading
into some form of 'Data Science', whatever that may entail.

Does this mean that only physics/math/stats majors are getting into this
field? At my current place of employment this is the case for the data
scientists; all have an academic background in one of these three fields, all
have a Masters or PhD. I assumed this was because the head data scientist had
a long history with academia and thus had a predilection for academics.

From my experience the data science concepts I have encountered thus-far seem
pretty straightforward and I suspect that people are trying to make these
concepts seem more difficult/arcane than they are by using notations/concepts
only learned in academia. Am I wrong here? Is it actually a field which
requires a PhD in Math to understand? My exposure has only been with toy
examples (logistic regression, simple perceptrons, similarity algorithms,
etc). How easy is it to get into the field without a heavy academic
background?

------
princeb
move over javascript, matlab will soon rule silicon valley!

edit: this is just a tongue in cheek comment that physicists will rule silicon
valley with about the same chance of success matlab will be used for
enterprise dev.

~~~
hprotagonist
you must be thinking mechanical engineers. Real Physicists use fortran.

~~~
asafira
Pencil and paper is where it's at.

------
elliott34
Doesn't really seem like the author spoke to a lot of actual physicists to
write this article. Don't get me wrong, physics majors attract a certain type
of intellect, but the vast majority of curriculum (quantum, EM, mechanics) are
things THAT HAVE BARELY CHANGED IN THE PAST 50 YEARS. Meanwhile, CS majors
come out much more prepared and hirable on the job market.

As far as the machine learning market goes, 90% of the projects require
software engineering skills, the last 10% requires being able to go underneath
the covers of linear algebra libraries, etc.

I just think the whole physics>cs degree for machine learning argument is not
totally persuasive given my experience.

~~~
vitaminbandit
How is the notion that "the vast majority of curriculum (quantum, EM,
mechanics) are things THAT HAVE BARELY CHANGED IN THE PAST 50 YEARS" relevant
to this discussion?

~~~
elliott34
Because the author draws a lot of parallels between computer science majors
and physics majors, citing that physics majors are better prepared for the
type of work ML requires. I am a physics major turned data scientist, and my
argument is that I would have better prepared having been a CS major, given
what the majority of my work requires. While in a CS major, a lot of data
structures and algorithms haven't changed in 50 years either, you're much more
likely to take electives with marketable skills or with up-to-date
technologies (distributed systems, operating systems, OO/fp, databases,
concurrency) that would've helped me in my day to day more than a math course
or too did during my physics degree.

------
bondolo
Considering how competitive physics graduate programs are at top schools it is
a shame to hear that so few are pursuing careers in physics and some appear to
be calculating in advance their move to CS. I love CS but if I had a passion
for physics I would be pissed to see someone that society, schools, mentors,
peers have invested in to do physics go be quant at an investment bank. It is
not that working for a bank is intrinsically bad, more the case that
individuals should consider the opportunity they may have been taking from
others in pursuing a specialized education they subsequently don't use.

------
m23khan
I myself have only a CS background (BSc + MSc in CS), and I am working in IT
for last 8 years. Initially, I used to have negative opinion towards people
from other non-CS backgrounds able to get jobs as Software Engineers and as IT
Managers/Directors.

Now for the past 5 years, I am highly appreciative of such people because each
of them bring knowledge and interesting viewpoints from their respective
academic/training backgrounds which serves to enrich the IT world. Thank you
guys :-)

------
eva1984
> In other words, all the physicists pushing into the realm of the Silicon
> Valley engineer is a sign of a much bigger change to come.

So this article comes all the way to this. Is there data that hiring of
physicists speeded up in the recent years? And why roles they are taken?
Presumably not all in machine learning, if I have to guess.

Until then, this is another effort to turn an otherwise good interview into an
unsubstantiated editorial aiming for nothing but hype.

~~~
throw_away_777
Most physicists who recently graduated who I know (who don't do a postdoc)
have transitioned or are looking to transition into data science. I am in the
looking to transition group, so my sample may be biased though.

------
CalRobert
This starts pretty early. I mean, would you rather be treated like dirt doing
your prof's work for her or him for poverty-level wages (if any!) or making a
decent income as a CS intern?

I got my undergrad in physics, but spent all of my free time (and a lot of
what probably should have been study-time) teaching myself to code. It had a
pretty brutal impact on my GPA, but I've no regrets.

------
deepnotderp
Nitpick: newton's method is intractable in Deep learning since it's
computationally intractable to compute the hessian matrix

~~~
montecarl
Newton's method might be, but quasi-Newton methods like L-BFGS[1] are usable
if you can calculate the gradient of your problem and have enough memory to
store several previous coordinates and gradients (so maybe 10x the memory
requirement of gradient descent).

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited-
memory_BFGS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited-memory_BFGS)

~~~
throwaway61AR
Yep this was used by Jeff Dean et al. in one of Google Brain's earlier
experiments
[https://research.google.com/archive/large_deep_networks_nips...](https://research.google.com/archive/large_deep_networks_nips2012.html)

------
dkarapetyan
Mathematicians as well. It's not just physicists. In fact any of the STEM
fields is a valid path to software engineering.

------
biggerfisch
I was a CS student who (personally, not a critique of all CS teaching) got
tired of the way CS was taught at my school, which focused so much more on
algorithms (which is good) and how to implement them (which can also be good)
but tested the knowledge in ways I thought were only semi-useful. Fractions of
a second of performance were more important to your grade than full
correctness and good style. Collaboration was highly discouraged, which to
some degree makes sense, but led to students who were inevitably terrible at
group projects in senior year.

This eventually drove me to take a year off and then resume as a Physics
major. I'm almost done now with my BS and am so happy I made this choice.

Despite switching to a Physics major, I'll probably end up working in a
programming position eventually. It's a far easier career to get into.

------
lowbloodsugar
Physics major here, but programming since age 11. I wasn't a fan of how CS was
taught to my friends, but undeniably there is so much incredibly important
knowledge in CS that you won't get in a Physics degree. Such important works
as the Dragon compiler book, Introductions to Algorithms, SICP, the Purity
Test. Since coursera came along, I've found a number of online courses
absolutely mind-altering. Basically, to my fellow physicists: yes, you are a
smarty pants, but respect the body of CS knowledge and learn it.

------
mizzao
Is there a huge difference between physics PhDs and computer science PhDs in
this argument? Both are overspecialized in their research, but both also have
a wide range of skills in programming, abstract problem solving, writing,
communication, and so on. Both will likely have high-level knowledge of a
variety of machine learning methods, except the CS PhD that actually published
machine learning research who will know a bit more about some very specific
topics.

(I'm a CS PhD and I know many physics PhDs as well.)

------
return0
Strange how the article doesn't mention that (not Hinton), Hopfield,
Sejnowski, Kohonen , Amari etc. etc. were all phycisists.

Also, physicists working for software is not only a silicon-valley phenomenon
.

~~~
p1esk
Hinton was never a physicist.

------
Diederich
I sat right next to a really smart guy who was a hadoop administrator.

Turns out he got a PhD in theoretical physics and did some graduate work at
Fermilab.

Holy crap...this run of the mill Hadoop administrator is some kind of physics
genius.

I asked him why....he said that his true love, particle physics, just didn't
pay the bills like any random IT related job does.

Which is a damn shame.

PS: While we were talking, a dude one row over popped up and said he had a PhD
in Chemistry or something.

------
Jordrok
Can confirm, have a physics PHD friend who is now doing primarily programming
work.

I, for one, welcome our new physicist overlords!

~~~
popobobo
overlord is a strong word. As a physics major, I would prefer to be called a
tech minion.

------
Philomath
Aerospace engineer here!

Not a physicist and not that there's a lack of open jobs, but I was also way
more interested in programming.

I started my own project in 2nd year of university and it changed everything
to me. I've been able to apply my knowledge during my years of university and
also out of it with my side-projects.

------
cowmix
Same as it ever was.

All my best developers over the past 25 years I've managed were either
physicists or mathematicians.

------
tehwalrus
Did physics undergrad, worked as a developer for a couple of years, then did a
computational physics PhD, now firmly back as a developer.

I would do open ended research if there were any jobs going, but there
generally aren't. And I'd be just as happy in computer science as physics.

------
loblollyboy
I didn't study CS, I more use software (like django) than build it, and, in
fact, probably misuse it. But the few plasma physics classes I took for my MS
are an order of magnitude more complex than any programming I have ever done.

------
grillvogel
its really great that our world's top scientists are working on ad
monetization

------
akhilcacharya
I'm surprised that this is surprising.

Physics as a career doesn't pay terribly well, but as a degree offers a very
wide breadth in coursework and skills. Grad students in particular usually
have experience in HPC, for instance.

------
ejrowley
I studied physics, with intention of becoming a developer (which I did). I
didn't have much appetite for a CS course and felt the physics would give me a
broader set of skills.

~~~
FlorianRappl
I followed a similar path and can only agree on the attitude. Most of the
relevant CS knowledge is just that: knowledge. Studying physics is usually
less about knowledge and more about general problem solving skills.

~~~
niels_olson
I'd go beyond "general problem-solving skills". Physics gives you high quality
math training (albeit somewhat truncated with respect to number theory),
coupled with demanding experimental methods, and a deep, principled
understanding of the _foundations of the universe_. Nothing is beyond your
reach. Any other quantitative or logical discipline is just laying there,
waiting for you.

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Koshkin
The effort one has to put into getting a physics degree seems to me comparable
to that of becoming a physician (a medical doctor), and it pains me to see all
that effort wasted. Some argue that it is the acquired skill in solving
problems that matters, but, having seen physicists and mathematicians (and
even "computer scientists") by training trying to solve software engineering
problems, I have to disagree. Likewise, from what I have also observed,
problem solving skills of a good software engineer may not be by themselves
all that useful when trying to tackle problems in physics and mathematics.

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drallison
Not a new phenomenon. Most super-programmers and computer scientists
(especially greybeards) were trained a physicists.

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amai
Wired: "Move Over, Coders—Physicists Will Soon Rule Silicon Valley"

And soon we will rule the world, muhahaha...!﻿

~~~
Koshkin
> _Move Over, Coders_

"Coders" \- sure, but not software engineers.

Incidentally, the skill of "coding" (i.e. using a programming language to
automate tasks on a computer) should, in my opinion, be taught in school at an
early age along with the multiplication table.

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jfe
iirc dennis ritchie was an applied mathematician.

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throwaway21211
Confirmed by Netcraft.

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tresil
Shameless clickbait. TL;DR: Some physicists have become software developers
because it pays better than being a physicist. Physicists are smart people
overall so they are well suited to solving complex problems that one
encounters when developing software.

