
Ask HN: Who hires mathematicians? - gremble
Granted, as I am only graduating with a straight BSc it is perhaps a bit presumptuous of me to consider myself a mathematician, but I would like to. I&#x27;ve been looking at jobs and the only people who seem interested in me are banks or people looking for a &quot;quantitative analyst&quot; in the financial sector.<p>Who hires mathematicians, other than the aforementioned financial industry?<p>I know that machine learning is pretty math heavy, and I have taken a look at some of the mathematics involved and some programming firms also don&#x27;t mind if you have a BSc Mathematics&#x2F;Applied Mathematics degree. But doing that doesn&#x27;t seem like doing mathematics.<p>This is perhaps an odd question for the site, but I have been struggling with this and everyone here seems professional and helpful from my years of reading here.
======
roel_v
Not me, that's for sure. I interviewed two maths phd's years ago, who wanted
to get out of academia because they felt themselves above chasing grant money,
but then didn't want to do anything that wasn't their phd topic or related (of
which I didn't even understand what it was, and they couldn't explain, or give
examples of what it could be used for).

On the other hand, I did hire people who studied maths in programmer-ish
roles; meaning: they didn't have to be programmers, we'd teach them, but they
did have to apply maths to our concrete problems and translate it into
programmed solutions. I don't think any of them used particularly advanced
maths, or did anything they could get published in maths journals (not that
I'd recognize it if I'd see it)

So, from my perspective, to be employed as a 'mathematician', you have to go
into academia. Otherwise, you have to apply your math skills in some other
field; but you won't be called (or probably feel) a 'mathematician'.

(all people with advanced maths degrees I know work as programmers)

~~~
jordigh
That was my experience. All my math degree ever did was mildly impress
potential recruiters, but I had to learn how to code things unrelated to
mathematics to get a job.

The only job I was able to get as a mathematician "outside" of academia was a
brief stint teaching high school mathematics. Which was fun and I would do
again if the pay were higher.

~~~
sillysaurus3
It was fun? Could you talk about that some more?

Any time someone talks wistfully about a job they'd like to have, it's good to
listen.

~~~
jordigh
I was replacing someone on mat leave so I could only have the job for one
year. I was teaching three regular classes of geometry, one honours geometry,
and one IB Standard Level class which was a whirlwind mish-mash of topics.

The honours class was an absolute blast to teach. The kids were engaged, they
were able to handle the toughest problems I could throw at them, they liked
being there. Having the privilege to teach that class was worth the whole
year.

The regular geometry classes were more challenging but still lots of fun to
teach. It was more difficult there to get across to the kids. Many of them
didn't want to be there. I still tried and came up with lots of different ways
to explain things. Not all of my methods were successful.

The IB SL class was a mixed bag. These were dedicated students who worked hard
but didn't really want to take a lot of mathematics, because they didn't want
to take the Higher Level class. Some of them understood, some of them didn't.
I was very sad to have one student who for whatever reason I just couldn't
reach. She seemed dedicated, very polite, she wanted to succeed, but she
failed nearly every exam. It was a little heartbreaking. I have no idea what I
was doing wrong.

I was very young and green. I have had more informal teaching experience,
mostly in the way of giving tech talks or explaining computer things to other
computer people, but I always wish I could be explaining geometry again to
kids, trying to nudge them to explore and learn in their own ways.

------
lmkg
I graduated with a BSc in Mathematics in 2008, and didn't exactly know what I
wanted to do. I just typed the keyword "analyst" into job search engines. It
worked pretty well! I ended up getting a job in a field that I didn't even
know existed when I started (web analytics). It turns out that almost every
industry has some sort of data that they can benefit from having someone
analyze it, and a Math degree is a pretty good qualification for it.

Don't worry too much if you don't match the exact description of a job
posting. I've actually never met all of the job requirements for any of the
jobs I've been hired to. Point of fact, most people will look at a Math degree
as a degree in "Very Smart" and give you the benefit of the doubt about being
able to pick up any specific skills you might be missing. This is doubly-true
for niche fields (like web analytics) where there aren't specialized degrees,
and picking up the skills on the fly is a requirement.

I will say, almost any job that you take won't look like "doing mathematics"
in the sense that you're used to from college. That pretty much doesn't exist
outside of academia, with the possible exception of research labs that require
an advanced degree.

~~~
bjourne
I wouldn't say people with BSc in math are "very smart," they are in my
opinion wickedly, awesomely super-smart. I have taken some math courses which
contain material that math BSc:s go through during the first semester and
those were much harder, by a large margin, than any other courses I have
taken!

But I can't imagine going through three years of that and then have to spend
your time with web analytics. It must feel awfully pedestrian. The level of
the math can't be anywhere close to what a BSc is capable of.

~~~
aklemm
Meh, most of everything is pedestrian.

------
En_gr_Student
I'm a mechanical engineer with strong minors in applied computational
mathematics and scientific computing, and math has been, for me, a super-
power. It opens all kinds of thermal, structural analyst jobs. I can optimize
all kinds of stuff. I can automate simulations and plot the results in ways
that the non-technical can get a good idea of the right direction to go. That
all comes from math.

Can you hand-code a solver for Maxwells equations or Navier-Stokes (lid-driven
cavity flow)? That opens electronics and thermo-fluids. How are you with
classic and singular perturbation methods? That gives you signal integrity at
Intel - they pay pretty well. Get a few languages under your belt - icky
things that are gold plated. MatLab, LabVIEW, Python, SQL, and C. That gives
you most of mechanical engineering, lab-based data collection, tons of current
"data science", being able to work with previous content, and making your code
go really fast, respectively.

Try not looking for jobs on monster, or dice or such. Get friendly with a
technical recruiter at Manpower Technical and ask them to get you a few decent
contract positions to help you both return some excellent value, and to grow
your professional breadth. Make sure some of the positions are business,
production, design, and leadership in that order. If you do leadership first
without the others, you are wasting yourself.

Read a few books on how to negotiate salary. Your earnings at age 25 determine
your total lifetime earnings, so if you let yourself get low-balled early, it
can cost you a few million in total lifetime earning. You don't want that.

Once of my heroes is Karl Kempf. Read what he, applied mathematician that he
is, has done. He returns a defensible $8 billion per year every year in new
value to his company. He is someone to emulate.

~~~
jordigh
> Can you hand-code a solver for Maxwells equations or Navier-Stokes (lid-
> driven cavity flow)?

For my undergrad, I mostly focussed on number theory and differential
geometry. These topics are mostly useless unless you want to work at the NSA,
which only works for the US. Most of my undergraduate curriculum is absolutely
useless except for the art of mathematics itself.

For my Masters I wanted to learn more about numerical analysis, hoping to land
a job this way. I suppose that did help me understand topics like machine
learning, which really seems to me like numerical analysis rebranded, but I
didn't end working on anything like it. In fact, what happened is that I
started contributing to Octave and used the experience from working on that to
justify getting other programming, non-mathematical jobs.

The reason I'm telling this story is just to emphasise that most mathematics
is useless, always has been, always will be, just like most art is useless.
You mentioned very specific areas and applications of mathematics, but
mathematician in general will always have difficult finding jobs pertaining to
their mathematical interests and need to diversify towards the need of the job
market.

~~~
Myrmornis
I think the comments here could do with being put in a little perspective.
There are programmers reading HN (well, all programmers) for whom one
important way they can improve as a software engineer is to improve their
powers of abstract thinking. You people who have studied advanced mathematics,
any of it, are exceptionally skilled at thinking abstractly. I think there’s a
risk of underestimating how useful that is in software engineering.

~~~
jordigh
I think it's a bit superstitious how we think that being good at math means
you'll be good at programming. I'm not complaining, because that superstition
helped me. Like I said, my math degree did give recruiters an initial good
impression of me. Other than that, I don't think it translates into much of a
benefit when writing code. I have personally witnessed many mathematicians
write the most atrocious code, myself included.

Also, if it really were about that kind of structured thinking, maybe just
teaching chess to kids would be just as well.

~~~
Myrmornis
Wouldn’t you say there’s a difference between structured thinking (say, a kind
of breadth-first search of ideas with pruning) and abstract thinking (which
allows a programmer to, say, identify the need for a Form class on the backend
to model and process POST data)? Bad programmers will just keep writing
similar code to process the POST data with no abstraction about what is being
done and why. Related, mathematicians use lemmas and theorems to reuse
thought.

~~~
jordigh
I think the relationship is as tenuous as being a good cook or a good chess
player. Coming up with a unique recipe for cake or a good strategy for
checkmate is about equally comparable to writing good code.

~~~
Myrmornis
OK, I don't think I agree. In the area I work in, writing good code isn't so
much about coming up with a clever sequence of moves; a large part of it is
being adept at modeling real life situations with abstractions in software,
and being adept at manipulating and combining those abstractions, and seeing
when and to what extent they can be used more broadly, and knowing how to
assess whether the end product is correct to the required degree.

------
thearn4
I have a PhD in mathematics, and have been working in the public sector (NASA)
for a little under 10 years. A mix of interest in numerical linear algebra and
software engineering helped me work into a niche in scientific computing and
engineering software development.

Math is a very, very broad professional interest area. It branches into
education, academia, and several areas in several industries around the senior
year of an undergraduate program. I'd recommend undergraduate math majors try
and get into co-op or paid internship programs as soon as they feel
comfortable with it. But that's advice that I'd also give to ANY student these
days.

Most technical organizations will hire folks with a mathematics background or
entertain the though for a promising applicant. But there are almost no job
titles out there called "Mathematician". That can be confusing to some.

~~~
zintinio5
Any chance you know someone hiring for said scientific computing roles? I
studied Applied Math / CS undergrad, have been gearing up to work in
Autonomous Vehicles, but really any challenging numerical work would be
interesting to me.

------
n4r9
I have a PhD in maths (applied, though most of my undergraduate was pure), and
lectured for a couple of years before moving to a bigger city and deciding to
break out of the academic hamster wheel.

My wife already had a job secured, so I had the opportunity to be a little
patient. This really paid off.

I considered many of the types of jobs mentioned by others.

Analyst / tech-consultant jobs didn't seem technically interesting enough.
Mostly seemed to involved adapting the same framework or analyses to
companies' slightly different requirements.

I got through to an on-site interview with an algorithmic trading firm
offering huge bucks, but decided I didn't like the idea of moving money around
to make very rich people even richer. My dad still says I should try and do
something like this for just a few years then change to something more
fulfilling.

I was interested in the betting / odds playing type companies and even went to
interview with one (rejected). In hindsight I don't think I'd have enjoyed it
as much as my current job.

After a month of my CV being online, I was rung personally by the MD of a
smallish company that makes software for public / municipal services. He
described excitedly the types of optimisation problems he was hoping to solve,
and said he'd been looking to hire the right person to work on it for years.
The personal touch and his obvious enthusiasm and energy sold it, and I've now
worked there for a year. I've learnt and implemented a lot of algorithms and
techniques from a broad range of topics - network routing, discrete
optimisation, graph theory, markov chains, plus some bonus stuff like cluster
analysis and signal processing. It's been more fascinating than all but maybe
the first year of my PhD.

I guess my advice is just that these types of jobs are out there. I noticed a
couple of other comments about radar tracking and remote sensing, both of
which sound awesome. If you have the opportunity, hold off until you find
something that strikes you as exciting or even unique. If you don't have the
opportunity, perhaps find something "rote" but keep an eye out.

~~~
waiquoo
That's interesting, my PhD is in an engineering field and projects have
included a lot of what you mentioned ('graph theory, markov chains, ...
cluster analysis and signal processing'...). I just went through a job search
and couldn't find anyone very interested in these skills, so I'm back in
another postdoc. Any advice on companies/industries specific to those types of
methods?

~~~
n4r9
There are a lot of interesting problems in vehicle routing, route optimisation
and GPS data processing. There often aren't good libraries which solve them
with enough flexibility and performance, and better algorithms are being
researched and published all the time. Thus it's quite common for companies to
develop in house solutions. A blog post by food delivery comoany Ocado [0] was
posted on HN a while back, and I'm sure companies like CityMapper and Strava
that work with maps (as well as Google and Bing of course) are constantly
trying to improve their algorithms.

[0] [https://ocadotechnology.com/blog/ocado-internet-of-
vans/](https://ocadotechnology.com/blog/ocado-internet-of-vans/)

~~~
zintinio5
I will keep this in mind when researching jobs.

------
mdlthree
From my experience, I would offer the generalization that nobody hires
mathematicians. Mathematics in society is more of a skill set than a
professional title. The most challenging or cutting edge math that could be
commonly used is the LINEST() function in Excel. A person who is good at math
also has a lot of great skills to offer a company, it is just selling those
features and not the calculus.

I started out as a math major, then I transitioned to a double major math AND
stats because stats is more applicable. I struggled for a year looking for
work (also US immigration sucks, even for Canadians) and ended up in a master
degree program in Industrial Engineering. I chose engineering specifically for
the word "engineering". I was lucky that I discovered the field of Industrial
Engineering at that university otherwise I was headed for a BS in Mechanical.

Continuing formal math education will further limit the kind of jobs you can
apply, increasing the level of competition. Even the BS in Math left me with
the feeling people saw me as over qualified, lacking regular skills.

Math is super great by the way, just not the idea of being a "mathematician".
It (unfairly) causes alienation of your true potential.

~~~
walshemj
What is the difference between mech and industrial?

~~~
mdlthree
Mechanical engineers make things, industrial engineers make things better. The
discipline started in the 1900s mostly concerned with improving manufacturing
efficiency and cost. Now it has grown to improve all facets of product quality
and business process (physical and digital). It is one of the best disciplines
to use applied math.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_engineering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_engineering)

~~~
En_gr_Student
Industrial engineers work on production processes. You can't make a bridge
better without fully "grokking" the physics behind the original design. It
isn't exactly amenable to incremental improvement.

~~~
mdlthree
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8UePdbDmMw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8UePdbDmMw)
This was one of the keynote speakers at the 2015 IISE National Convention.
Nancy Currie was/is works for NASA and has education in Industrial
Engineering. She worked extensively investigating the Columbia space shuttle
incident. Her involvement shows how industrial engineers participated in
making space flight safer / better. It's really not grokking the physics that
can make things better. Excellent presentation.

------
Bahamut
NSA is the obvious answer if you want to do math - they do math at a lot of
levels, from research in algorithmic number theory to programming in
mathematically correct exploits. One former NSA employee told me that they
retrained him as a programmer.

Data Science is possible, but generally seems hard to break in without prior
programming experience or a masters or higher - I had problems getting in as a
4 year PhD dropout from a prestigious math program, and ended up teaching
myself programming & have carved out a nice career as a software engineer. My
math & physics background has proven to be a bonus in my favor when
interviewing, and I generally am favorable to people with a math background I
encounter in industry/interviewing candidates since I have found it fairly
uncommon.

I would go to on campus career events if possible, and talk with company
recruiters about interviewing & general tips. There are potential other
options depending on how open you are to them - the options are a lot more
open IMO than with most degrees. One thing that might help is to go to Indeed,
LinkedIn, etc., and just search for jobs in a particular area - if a
particular profession sounds like something that might be feasible/palatable
for a career or first step, jot down the title, and continue. This doesn't
mean you're committing to anything in particular, but it will help you
understand what you are looking for better and better prepare for any future
interview sessions where they ask you what got you interested in <insert
position>.

------
impendia
I am a mathematics professor (at a non-elite university).

If anyone has advice on how I can help our students (at all levels --
undergrad and grad) get jobs in any of these industries, I would be grateful
to listen!

~~~
jtmcmc
I have a Bs in applied mathematics and I'm a software engineer. I think that
mathematicians make incredible software engineers (not me necessarily ) if
they do two things, take some basic cs classes, get co-ops/internships
programming.

I faced a _lot_ of bias when getting into the industry because people didn't
want to train me to program or thought I'd be too weak of a software engineer,
etc... and I believe having internships/co-ops would have massively helped
rectify that and also have given me a network of jobs to work at.

~~~
godelski
I'd actually be interested in your experience. Personally I have a degree in
Physics. Only two classes in programming (majorly self taught) and work in
simulations. How does the software engineering field see people like me? I've
applied to programming jobs in the past and just never knew if I was under
qualified, didn't stand out, or just slipped through the cracks in the large
amounts of applications places get.

And to OP's question, look into simulation. There's a lot I learned on the
job, but having basic programming abilities will go a long way. A lot of
engineers are weak at programming compared to what I see in CS.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I did a double major, math and physics. I was basically self-taught with
respect to computers ( _one_ CS class on my transcript). I got hired as a
programmer by a lady with a Master's in math, who was largely self-taught with
respect to computers. That first hire is all it takes - after that, I had
experience.

I graduated in 1984, though, so this may not be very applicable to the current
situation...

~~~
godelski
Well that sounds reasonable to me. First job was hard to get though. I can
completely understand where the OP is coming from.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
The first job was the grace of God. If I interviewed with someone else, I'm
not sure that I would have been hired. ("You taught yourself? Sure you did,
kid. Run along and play, now.")

~~~
godelski
Haha that's what I got a lot. Though I think that's why it might be easier to
get into programming at an engineering job.

------
moomin
The short answer is “everyone”. I’m a mathematician who’s worked in various
roles in various sectors. Not one of them actually involved doing any maths,
but plenty of them appreciated the kind of mental training studying maths
gives you. (There are other routes to this clarity.)

So I guess the question is: are you looking for a job where you get to do
maths, or are you just worrying about employability?

~~~
gremble
I guess not employability as much as hoping someone will pay me to solve
problems with mathematics with ideally some interesting problems thrown in. I
majored in pure and applied mathematics and I am fully aware the no one is
going to ask me to do functional analysis for cash, but it would still be nice
to do some sort of applied mathematics for money.

~~~
jtmcmc
amusingly functional analysis is really important to convex analysis and
optimization so yes if you have a phd/masters (maybe) you can definitely get -
probably a giant company - to pay you to do functional analysis.

~~~
gremble
Of all the great replies I've gotten, this one has arguably alleviated my
concerns the most.

~~~
zintinio5
I've seen at least one or two companies working on optimization at least here
on HN. I'd take a guess that Gurobi is one option, and I saw SigOpt post a
listing on the recent "Who's Hiring?" thread. Google seems to also do a lot of
optimization related work as well. I'm in the same boat, though I was stronger
in CS during my studies. The background is useful, but you will only ever use
bits and pieces of it at opportune moments.

------
skadamat
Data science, data science, data science. The company I'm involved has some
blog posts you might find useful:

\- [https://www.dataquest.io/blog/how-to-get-a-data-science-
job/](https://www.dataquest.io/blog/how-to-get-a-data-science-job/)

Feel free to email me if you want to chat more about data science careers, etc
(srini at dataquest.io)

~~~
b0rsuk
I concur. The OP says data science doesn't sound like feel like doing math. On
the other hand, job postings for "data scientists" where I live don't sound
like they have much to do with programming. They have long lists of math and
other theoretical requirements, and throw in "oh, and by the way it would be
nice if you had basic Python skills".

------
cglouch
If you find out, let me know! One thing I'll caution you about is there's
sometimes a bit of a disconnect between "doing math" as perceived by someone
who studied e.g. CS versus someone who studied math. For some people, doing
math means maybe doing some trigonometry or some basic stats; whereas others
won't be satisfied unless they're working on algebraic k-theory or something
similarly next level. For people in the former category, there are certainly
jobs available with just a bachelors degree and ideally some programming
skills, whereas for the latter, you'll almost certainly want a PhD (and even
then you may not get to use that knowledge outside of academia, depending on
your area of study.) You'll want to find out where you are on that spectrum,
and how you feel about grad school / work life balance / etc.

Personally, I got a bachelors in math and ended up working as a software
developer. There's enough overlap in the sort of thinking required that makes
it reasonably enjoyable. I do wish I had more opportunities to use math in my
job though!

~~~
santaclaus
> disconnect between "doing math" as perceived by someone who studied e.g. CS
> versus someone who studied math

In what sense? There are folks studying theory in CS departments who are by
all intents and purposes 'pure' mathematicians.

------
yaseer
If you see mathematics as a highly transferrable and broad intellectual skill
(rather than a narrow profession), _everybody_ hires mathematicians.

In software and computer science especially, mathematicians are likely to find
a compelling place to apply and develop those skills.

I've often thought the skillset for mathematics and software engineer are
isomorphic. Interestingly, there's a mathematical theorem showing that to be
true for functional programming (Google Curry-Howard correspondence).

My observation and experience is that good mathematicians make great software
developers. I believe Ryan Dahl dropped out of a PhD program for algebraic
topology and made node.js as one of his first open source contributions.

------
Jtsummers
A math degree could be very useful in the remote sensing industry (this has
both commercial and military uses). Processing radar and lidar data,
construction of 3d representations from imagery and video sources. This has
applications in agriculture, mining, medical, intelligence gathering, military
intelligence, etc.

In my experiences with companies doing this work it was a healthy mix of CS,
math, and physics personnel. The ones working for DoD largely preferred people
with PhDs and masters degrees as they bill the government more for those
people's time, but they would also provide a lot of financial aid (often 100%)
for you to pursue graduate degrees for the same reason.

~~~
llamaz
"Processing radar and lidar data, construction of 3d representations"

these are all 4th year/masters level electrical (or mechatronic) engineering
topics at my university (except Lidar although that might come under
photonics, which again is an EE subject).

And the way they are taught doesn't emphasize math (well... the hardcore math
is mentioned in lectures but not assessed), but rather MATLAB or domain
specific software.

~~~
Jtsummers
Alright, maybe I didn't give the best examples. How about this, office next
door to mine is taking radar systems fielded in the 80s, developed in the 70s,
and using them to construct 3d models of the detected objects. This is far
beyond the capabilities originally intended for these systems and is actually
quite impressive (no published results that I'm aware of, unfortunately). This
is algorithms and math heavy work. They have a combination of experts (well,
some becoming experts) in computer graphics, radar systems, machine learning,
and other fields present doing this work.

------
egl2016
If you want something that is mostly "doing mathematics", i.e. thinking about
Galois groups, differential geometry, or the Riemann hypothesis, that is
pretty tough. Many jobs have interesting mathematical content, but to get them
you will probably need to convince the prospective employer that you can
handle the non-mathematical content, which likely means writing non-trivial
computer programs. The one exception that I can think of might be entry-level
actuarial positions.

At this point, a lot of people decide to get a masters degree in operations
research, statistics, or computer science. But don't completely give up and
get an MBA. :-)

------
msds
I did the same thing, and ended up working for an early-stage biotech company
doing some combination of hardware design, signal processing, machine
learning, and experiment design. For better or worse, people generally seem to
think a math degree implies "smart" and tend to be willing to overlook a lack
of any specific skills...

~~~
mihaitodor
Which company is that if I may ask?

~~~
msds
I'd rather not, sorry!

~~~
mihaitodor
That's OK. I'm looking for something similar, hence the question :)

------
spicyj
The NSA. (Really. Some of the largest employers of mathematicians.)

~~~
squeegee3
Yes, exactly. Be wary of staying too long - then you may not have much to
(publicly) show for years of work.

~~~
mozumder
Not something you'd need to worry about, since you won't get fired from there.

~~~
bdamm
Making yourself illiquid is also a way to cut short your career options.
Should you have a shift in life priorities you may find yourself wishing to
work somewhere that you cannot. Everyone should be able to say _something_
about their work.

------
ssijak
My company which is the largest sports betting company in the Balkans is
having a team made of only mathematicians. They do work related to statistics
and calculations for ods and game mechanics.

------
dandare
Off topic: one of my secret regrets in life is that I am not smart enough to
be a mathematician. I watch the popular channels, I read about the new
discoveries, I drunkenly explain some of the fancy concepts to my friends
after the fourth beer. I wish I could understand higher mathematics.

~~~
KSS42
"What one fool can do, another can." (Ancient Simian Proverb) \- From Calculus
Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson via
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14161876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14161876)

I have refreshing my mathematics knowledge via videos made by Grant Sanderson.

Search "3blue1brown" on YouTube. I started with his Linear Algebra series
(recommended here on HN)and then the Calculus series and finally the Neural
Networks series. (highly recommended)

He is working on a Probability Series and I am supporting him on Patreon.

------
ChrisRackauckas
Machine learning is actually quite math-lite in comparison to "math" like PhD
math. Most masters/PhD math stuff just isn't required or used in the
discipline at all. You can get away with undergraduate analysis for pretty
much all of it. But it builds off of undergraduate math. So in that sense,
you're not really looking for a position for "mathematicans", rather a
position for "data scientist" or "quantitative ...", where if you take a field
and stick quantitative in front there's a subfield for it. If you search those
terms you'll likely find things more in line with what you're looking for.

As for places to look, there's lots of stuff going on in the web and general
computing sectors which are now making use of machine learning tools and
hiring teams of data scientists. There's also quantitative biology
(pharmacology), climate science, etc. disciplines, but many of them want
applicants who have a PhD.

If things don't seem "mathy" enough, it's because a lot of the true math jobs
and research requires a graduate degree in a math-related field. Doesn't need
to be a Math/Applied Math PhD, but even CS, Physics, Climatology, Systems
Biology, etc. programs set you up for a math-based career. Without trying to
be demeaning, math is a very vertical discipline and the issue is that
undergraduate math is really just the basic competences and most of the
interesting stuff comes after, which is why many things require a lot more
than a BS.

~~~
gremble
This was very informative, thanks. I am perusing postgraduate studies. I've
been accepted into an Honours degree in Applied Mathematics so I am not
hanging up my academic hat yet.

My reason for asking the question is two-fold: some badly needed reassurance
that I have not rolled myself into a hole (I think it was a design flaw that
we cannot re-roll characters in real life) and getting a broader perspective
on potential places to keep in mind - in terms of extra-curricular skills that
I need to gather along the way.

~~~
jdowner
If it is reasonable for you to continue with postgraduate studies, I would
recommend that you do that. The more math you can do or know the better. And
it is going to be harder to gain those skills once you leave university.

You haven't mentioned any software skills. I would recommend develop whatever
skills you have in that area. The ability to program is becoming as important
as literacy and numeracy. Even more so for a mathematician.

My bias is that I have a PhD in math and have been a software engineer for the
last 10+ years. I have worked in a lot of different areas and that has largely
been because of the combination of math and software (and luck).

~~~
gremble
Oh. I can program. I've done two university courses using C++. I've taught
myself haskell using Haskell Book and for my numerical analysis course I
reimplemented all the matlab that we had to do in Julia and Python. A
different poster mentioned C/C++ so I am currently considering going through
the numerical analysis again and doing it in C++.

I didn't mention programming because I don't see myself being a developer,
which I knew would get a lot of attention. I like solving problems with
programming, but I don't see myself writing a webapp to collect information
for someone to steal.

Computer Science is my secret lover. I initially studied that, but my
university focused on producing java devs for industry and didn't do the
"science" of computer science. I still work through books when I have time
though. About half-way with TAOCP V1.

------
ecesena
Personally, I specialized in cryptography, did a few years of research in
security, and now work in security. Note that I always liked programming (in
fact I kind of chose math over eng pretty much randomly). To your point, I
don't do a lot of math on a daily basis -- I see it more like
painting/singing, you keep it as a passion, you don't do just that for living.

------
SwellJoe
Domain experts that can code are among the highest paid people in several
industries. So, if you don't know how to code, it would likely be a valuable
skill to learn. Python is probably sufficient for many industries, though some
of the performance-minded fields want C++ and even Fortran(!).

Lots of scientific computing requires a lot of math and is used in many
industries (a company I did contract work for in the past had contracts doing
fluid dynamics for P&G, geological analysis for ConocoPhillips, and something
for NASA...all using the same set of technical tools, specifically Python,
NumPy/SciPy, and some C++/Fortran backend stuff for performance; the company
was founded by a math PhD and they employed multiple math PhDs and at least
half of the people they employed had some sort of significant math
background).

So, if I were in your shoes, I'd learn SciPy/NumPy, and start following the
related communities for job postings. There's a lot of demand and a lot of
good-paying positions surrounding those communities.

Data science works with math, too, but not often at the advanced levels it
sounds like you might be looking for. AI/ML is also somewhat mathy, but not as
much as one might think (though I get the feeling there's room for more mathy
approaches to problems that are currently very brute-forcey, but my
understanding of math and of AI/ML is low enough to where that gut feeling
could very well be wrong).

Finally, digital signal processing is an area with significant reliance on
math (though pretty specific sub-genres of math). I've recently started taking
a couple of math MOOCs to refresh my memory of higher maths (and to learn it
for the first time in some cases) so I can understand DSP algorithms for audio
and music a little better. DSP has many applications in mobile devices, voice
recognition, music and audio and video, etc.

------
pstew
If you're interested in biomedical sciences and curing diseases, then a career
in bioinformatics/computational biology might be worth considering:
[http://www.bioinformaticscareerguide.com/p/career-
guide.html](http://www.bioinformaticscareerguide.com/p/career-guide.html)

------
jkingsbery
I used to manage a data science team for an ad-tech company. Applied modeling
problems come up a lot in advertising - how to model an event as a probability
distribution, how to use several of these probability distributions to solve
optimization problems in order to get most benefit given a fixed budget, and
so on. During my time managing that team, we had a few former PhD's (both
graduated and all-but-dissertation).

Since you asked, I currently work at Amazon, and we're hiring PhD's as applied
scientists:
[https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=phd+mathematics](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=phd+mathematics)

------
arcanus
HPC companies hire many mathematicians. I work with several PhDs in applied
mathematics.

Another area is finance, as you mentioned. I interviewed at several hedge
funds and investment banks after my undergraduate degree (in physics and
mathematics).

Of course, it's not hard to go into CS for a masters or PhD which opens up
many other options as well. This was more what I did.

Almost all these positions require you to be capable of both whiteboard work,
along with programming. So be sure you can develop software.

------
simonw
When statisticians rebranded themselves as data scientists a few years ago
they got themselves a pretty big average salary bump for their trouble.

------
ThemalSpan
I worked at a company that made CAD/CAM software and had to make extensive use
of calculus / linear algebra / computational geometry. Depending on what kind
of math you like doing / using, that might be an industry worth looking into.
Though it was a software development job, so I'm not sure if that aligns with
your interests either.

------
mikey00764
My colleague has a 1st class honours degree in Maths from Cambridge
university, he is both a mathematician and a software engineer. We work on
radar tracking algorithms, for civil and military aircraft in the UK.
Developing and/or understanding such algorithms needs highly skilled people
who understand Maths; I consider them to be Mathematicians.

------
kkylin
Professional societies like SIAM have listings, which you can view to get a
rough idea: [http://www.siam.org/careers/](http://www.siam.org/careers/) .
Most of these are academic, but not all. (I think, or at least hope, there's a
way to filter/sort.) Most of them may be targeted at PhDs, but again not all.

I'm an academic myself, and a significant fraction of our recent PhD grads
have gotten positions in data science, and at least one is now at a
pharmaceutical company working on mathematical modeling. The jobs are out
there. The tricky thing is that people don't generally advertise for
mathematicians, even though a good mathematician may fit the job well.

------
actuary
Insurance companies. Look into the actuarial profession.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I came here to say this. From what I gather, actuaries make big money and have
significant power at insurance companies. (I was merely a gumby processing
claims and needed special training to do my entry level job.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuarial_science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuarial_science)

------
nkoren
I've co-founded three companies (www.futurescaper.com, www.podaris.com, and
www.imatest.com, to a much lesser extent), all of which have employed
mathematicians on at least a part-time basis. If you're doing fancy parametric
constraints-based modelling systems, analysis of n-dimensional causal graphs,
or analysis of digital imaging systems, then a robust mathematics background
can really help. Non of our hires have been been _pure_ mathematicians,
inasmuch as we've needed them to also be able to code. But I can easily
imagine that larger companies pursuing similar domains _ought_ to see the
value in having purer mathematicians on their payroll.

------
kyleblarson
One piece of advice I would give you is to think about where your particular
area of focus in math overlaps with CS, how you could apply that towards a
real world problem / situation and how you could tailor your education towards
that goal. People in Math / ML / Stats with the chops to translate their
research into production quality code and systems are in huge demand. PS, we
are hiring data scientists at Wheelhouse!
[https://boards.greenhouse.io/wheelhouse/jobs/811845](https://boards.greenhouse.io/wheelhouse/jobs/811845)

------
RantyDave
You're doing it the wrong way round. Who needs mathematicians? What can it be
used for? Find the appropriate people on forums, github or whatever and talk
to them about it. Not HR, people who are involved in whatever you want to be
involved in.

Maybe get to know this too:
[https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/features/scientific_tools....](https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/features/scientific_tools.html)

------
pmoriarty
The NSA is allegedly the biggest employer of mathematicians in the US, and
possibly the world -- which is troubling, considering how ethically
questionable their work is.

~~~
walshemj
As opposed to say working to develop the software for those poker machines aka
the crack cocaine of gambling. Even my (Scary)Great Great Uncle who was an off
course book maker pre WW2 in Birmingham might blanch at that.

And yes it does make watching peaky blinders interesting :-)

------
foobaw
I know several top-level mathematicians (International Math Olympiad
medalists) and not all of them are working as Quants. Some of them compose
music, some of them are working as machine learning experts, VC funds, etc.
They may be slight outliers but it's possible to do whatever you want as long
as you posses the intellect and drive. I think Mathematics definitely help
with developing your logic skills that are applicable to anything.

------
rayj
My friend who did a math BS + partial masters from a large state agricultural
university got a job at a company similar to this
[http://www.tricore.org/](http://www.tricore.org/). understanding statistics
and working with VBA in excel were important, moreso than programming which
looked like the easy part. There were a couple other people with PHD in math
who also work there.

------
kirillseva
Data engineering and data science teams at Avant are biased towards hiring
pure math graduates. I think it's because training in mathematics necessarily
teaches you to jump up and down between different layers of abstraction which
makes motivated mathematicians very quick and effective learners.

If you don't mind relocating to Chicago drop me a line at kirill.sevastyanenko
(at) avant

------
mayakacz
I did a BSc in math/econ, then MSc in math. Went into consulting work, mostly
in security. Now work in crypto for a tech company.

------
contingencies
We just made a maths-heavy hire where a majority of work is expected to be
machine learning, linear algebra, forecasting, data analysis, etc. We design
food preparation and retail robots and supporting logistics and automation
systems.

Previously I tried to hire a maths PhD out of academia but the guy was all
talk and no action. He's now working for a hedge fund.

------
FredrikMeyer
I recently got a PhD in pure mathematics, and also recently started my job as
a junior developer in a large consultant firm in Norway. I only knew basic
Java and Python, but coming from mathematics, I find learning formal stuff
quite easy.

I've been working now for 4 months, and I really enjoy it. I'm still learning
something every day.

------
korbonits
I'm at NIPS (#NIPS2017) right now and both computer science and industry need
more people with strong math backgrounds. Advice: learn how to program and
you'll never be in need of interesting-enough mathematics

Edit:

Learn functional programming. It feels like math to a math person. Imperative
programming feels very foreign (e.g., standard python).

------
agentultra
Formal specifications and verification, proof assistants; program analysis and
synthesis; cryptography from protocols to at-rest; compilers and performance
analysis, etc.

I view maths as a power-augmenting skill set, like programming (which is a
kind of applied maths). It lets you think big thoughts.

~~~
bdamm
It also lets you break down the field into discrete chunks. A proof is not a
field of study, but a field of study (in Mathematics) cannot exist without
proofs. The way to start a field of study is to write a discrete conjecture
which could be developed into a proof.

Software is the same way. All big programs had to start somewhere.

------
kernelcurry
Look up "data science" positions wide range of applications and needs
depending on the company

------
alexchamberlain
What are your interests? What kind of work/industry are you looking for?

I graduated MMath in 2012 and have just completed my 5th year as a Software
Engineer at Bloomberg. I had a lot of programming experience, which helped. We
have a specialist graduate program for non-CS grads.

------
aldanor
Quant desks in hedge funds and prop trading companies - like Jane Street, SIG
and the like.

In most of those places, 'maths' will involve a lot of data science and
machine learning, plus a fair bit of programming, however PhD degree is quite
often a hard requirement.

(Source: am a quant)

------
dkural
Please also look at genomics/bioinformatics. Lot's of mathematics + software
involved.

------
mbrameld
US federal government is looking for a few:
[https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/478727900](https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/478727900)

------
DanBC
GCHQ / CESG / whatever the equivalent is in your country.

See also arms length organisations, such as Heilbronn Institute.
[https://heilbronn.ac.uk/](https://heilbronn.ac.uk/)

------
jdonaldson
We have a large number of MS/PhD level Math folks in my Data Science group.

------
Ntrails
Actuarial work is quite maths-y and grad schemes typically want maths grads as
they'll have the requisite grounding to do the actual work. It is not fully
finance but it is obviously money/risk related.

------
kyleschiller
Totally anecdotally, I've had friends with undergraduate degrees in Math go
straight into consulting and software engineering out of college with limited
work experience.

------
nvusuvu
Neptune technology group. Water meter company since 1892. They started making
ultrasonic meters a few years back and are looking for an applied
mathematician.

------
sidcool
Mathematicians can be excellent programmers, especially in machine learning
and statistical fields. I am a programmer and would love to be a
mathematician.

------
misiti3780
I graduated with an MS in Applied Mathematics and ended up working as a data
scientist for 4 years until moving on to more interesting stuff.

~~~
chirau
What interesting stuff did you move onto?

~~~
misiti3780
web consulting, i miss the math though, dont use it too much anymore.

------
beamatronic
The NSA and specialized consulting firms in the Washington, DC area ( Reston )

------
jrgirvan
Aranz Geo/ Seequent does providing you can code to

------
lopatin
Who hires physicists? Asking for a friend.

~~~
tomsthumb
IIRC Wall Street is the biggest employer of physicists.

They get all the really nutty math and can apply it to models, etc.

That might just be Ph. D's though.

~~~
lopatin
Is that still true? Now that exotic securities are looked down on, and the
safe ones are established don't require Ph. D level research anymore?

Follow up: You are right of course about Wall Street. NY, there's no better
place for a physicist that is tired of being broke. But, is the same true
about other big cities? Chicago, LA, Houston, SF? Is there any chance? Or is
NY Google, and Chicago is Bing at best?

------
wbl
Have you considered the NSA or CCR?

------
a_humean
Pretty much anything. Any consultancy would probably hire you as an analyst
for example if you social skills are ok.

------
vogt
Casino game publishers in Vegas

------
mdekkers
banks, small armies of them...

------
mozumder
NSA is great for mathematicians, but competition is tough. The best way to get
in as a co-op early in your college years, since it takes a year to get a
clearance.

~~~
walshemj
really that long? I though the NSA / CIA would expedite clearance.

So if you want to intern at the NSA do you apply a year in advance? maybe Matt
Cutts knows

~~~
mozumder
Yes. It really takes around 9 months. You'd have to apply beginning of your
sophomore year.

------
johansch
Spend a couple of months studying deep learning and python and you will get a
very well paid job.

