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Ph.D Employment? 51

Posted by Cliff from the advanced-education-in-the-workforce dept.
Dr. Nik asks: "As a recent Ph.D graduate in EE, I am curious to know where other Ph.Ds are employed. More specifically, I would be interested in knowing if you have moved into careers other than academic. Have you veered from the path? Are you still working in the field, or have you completely changed direction?" A couple of months ago, Slashdot was polled for PhDs in IT. How well do other areas of the workforce compare when it comes to hiring Doctorates?
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Ph.D Employment? More

Ph.D Employment?

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  • Google (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 )
    Google hires a lot of doctors. Granted, most of them are doctors of CS. But still.

  • Go back and get an MBA (Score:4, Interesting)

    by foniksonik ( 573572 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @06:14PM (#11186703) Homepage Journal
    Go back to school and get an MBA as well... should only take you 3 years... then you can a) have an awesome number of jobs to pick from or b) start your own company and do what you really want to do.

    Having an MBA and a PhD in EE will guarantee you plenty of funding for any idea you have. VCs and Traditional lenders will be knocking down your door to give you money.

    • heh (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jbellis ( 142590 )
      VCs never "knock down your door to give you money." Even if you are God's own biotech researcher.

      Personally, I think if you want to go the entrepreneurship route, you'll learn in 3 years from starting your own business and bootstrapping (even if it ultimately fails) than getting an MBA.
      MBAs are for middle managers.

      • Re:heh (Score:1, Troll)

        by cperciva ( 102828 )
        VCs never "knock down your door to give you money."

        You may be correct in this, but only in the literal sense. At the height of the dotcom bubble I was contacted by a VC who was interested in offering me "initial funding... of $5M to $15M". (I turned down the offer, since I was more interested in going to Oxford to do my D.Phil.)

        Of course, I doubt that would happen now, but this example at least demonstrates that it's not impossible.
      • Hmmm... no. An MBA means you know how to manage money... how to allocate funds, how to apply business theory. It means you can balance a budget, create a spreadsheet for profit/loss, etc.

        These are the things a lender wants to see... they care as much for your idea as how you manage your idea. An MBA should be able to take on any business and make it work... mix that with a PhD in EE and you have both business acumen and technological know-how.... ++

        You may learn a lot from starting your own business but i
        • PhD + MBA is probably an indication of too much school and too little real world experience.

          PhD's with enough real world savvy to make it in business don't need an MBA to learn how to write a business plan. If nothing else, they find an experienced MBA-type to write one.

          MBAs with enough technical savvy to make it in high-tech don't want to waste years on a thesis project that has no commercial application. They want to make things happen in the real world.

          More likely, PhD + MBA combinations combine the w
          • Possibly. You make some very good points. If you are pursuing both titles for the sake of having the titles and the status to go with them then you are probably of the type you have described.

            Personally I took teh altogether alternate path and didn't get either nor even a degree. However if I was to have gone the route of higher education I would have been interested enough in both disciplines to go after the doublet.

            PhD's do not typically have enough real world savvy and I surmise it is because they have
      • Also.. I was part of a startup in 2000... the year the bubble burst... the founders were.. MBA Harvard, PhD CS, PhD, CS, PhD CS.... guess who got the funding... to the tune of 13 million, 50 million total over the last 4 years... the MBA Harvard. The other guys made it real of course.. real and patented.. but the MBA got the money, he was 26 years old.. the PhDs were 37 on average. He knew how to put the numbers together, they knew how to back the numbers up with results. The company in question is now doin
    • Please don't listen to this person. No one, and I mean no one (aside of maybe your parents and/or wife) is going to knock on your door, trying to give you money based on your academic credentials. The only way a VC, and I mean a true VC, not some angel investors, is ever going to consider you for funding is after you have been established as a company, with paying customers and a somewhat solid reputation. A finished product is assumed in all this. Then the VC's come in and help you ramp up on marketing an
      • Sorry to tell you but I know first hand that if you have the right credentials and the right idea you can in fact get VCs to not only play ball but to put serious money down on something.

        I spent 4 months in a 3 bedroom apartment working on presentations and demo software with 15 to 20 people in the first months of 2000 putting together a valid business plan for CMGI@Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Lightwave Venture Funds to get 13 million in funding for a software startup company...

        Yes there was $600,000

  • My doctorate is in Mechanical Engineering (Score:4, Informative)

    by NVH Engr ( 30452 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @06:14PM (#11186704)
    I have never worked in academia and have never seriously considered it, other than as a part time adjunct faculty member. Industry has a strong need for PhD's; you have to look hard and be somewhat creative to find the opportunities but they are there.

    • Re:My doctorate is in Mechanical Engineering (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I noticed that my university which is a tier 3 university according to USNews rank recently just hired an assistant professor with specialization in Digital Design/Electronics, and he is being offered salary of $88,000 per year.
      I'm not sure if this $88,000 per year is for 9 months appointment or 12 months appointment though, since universities usually only pay professors for 9 months (Fall and Spring), unless the professor is teaching for Summer Course. But the point is, if a tier 3 university can pay $88,0
      • But the point is, if a tier 3 university can pay $88,000 per year, what can a Tier 1 university such as Purdue, Stanford, MIT can pay their professors?

        Top universities actually pay their professors less! Everyone wants to be a professor at Harvard or Yale. For most people, the prestige of being employed by a top university is more important than the extra money. Top universities receive so many qualified applicants that they can offer a relatively small quantity of money and still get the best out there.

  • Earlier? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 26, 2004 @06:24PM (#11186768)
    >> As a recent PhD graduate in EE, I am curious to know where other PhDs are employed

    Uh...shouldn't you have thought about this a couple years ago?

  • What's Your Background? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by David Greene ( 463 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @07:54PM (#11187464)
    This seems like an odd question to me. You must have some idea of what you do and don't like to do. You just spent five or more years working on a major research project. What did it involve? Are you still interested in the area? Are there branches off the research you'd like to pursue?

    At the end of my degree I had come to the conclusion that academia wasn't for me. Too many long hours with all the ridiculous politics of every workplace. So I joined the industrial workforce and am quite happy working in the general area of my research. But you'll find that wherever you go, it won't be exactly the same thing you've been working on. Nor should it be.

    My degree enabled me to pick exactly the kind of job I wanted. I felt completely comfortable turning jobs down if they weren't what I was looking for. Because no matter what else, the fact that you finished a Ph.D. is a big plus in your portfolio when it comes to reliability and dedication.

    There are plenty of EE/CS companies looking for Ph.D.'s. But don't go looking on Monster. Talk to your advisor and get "ins" where you need them. That's how it works. No one in H.R. has any idea what you did or how it applies to the company you may be looking at. Get a technical contact and pursue it.

  • Where I work (Lincoln Labs www.ll.mit.edu) all of the job openings require a masters or a phd (usually a phd). Any place like that would be a good place to start.
  • The question posted is "How well do other areas of the workforce compare when it comes to hiring Doctorates?"

    How the hell do you hire a doctorate?
  • Go into academia if you really like to publish papers so much so that you won't be promoted unless you write tons of papers. Also go into academics if you really like to spend most of your time writing research grants in this ever tightening and extremely competitive environment. Oh yeah also do so if you don't want to make more than $100k.

    Go into the private sector if you don't like any of the above reasons

  • If you are job hunting, try applying to companies run by people with doctorates; they seem more likely to hire based on that degree, since they understand the pain and effort it takes to get one. I have been at a couple of start-ups with PhDs in prominent positions, and they were respectful and gave large consideration to applicants with similar academic accomplishments.

    It's not to say that you need any sort of degree at all to succeed in the IT field; indeed, some of the best programmers I have ever met
  • all the super-genius PhDs were employed as story editors by Slashdot [slashdot.org] . . . ;>
  • This is unbelieveable. A PhD is a license to print money. With what you know, you create your own job. You never work for someone else for as long as you live.

    If this isn't patently obvious, then your education was a waste and you don't deserve the title Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Interviewed for professorships, took a research job (microbiology) with the federal government instead. Decent gig - the pay is not what I'd get in industry, but the job security is better, and I don't have to teach or constantly hustle for grant money the way my univerisity colleagues do.

  • ! job (Score:4, Funny)

    by drDugan ( 219551 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @11:32PM (#11188804) Homepage
    do not sell your mind. go do your own thing.

    if you have a phd in engineering... stop. relax, take 6 months and THINK about what you want to do with the next 30 years of your life. Think really big. Got that? OK next take another 6 months and create a 5-year plan to make the first step of the 30-year plan work. then go do it. When it's done, repeat (but this time use 25, not 30)

    Trust yourself. your ideas will be just as good as anyone else's, probably better. DO NOT go look for a job. you will be very disappointed.

    in my case I worked 2 years, then 1 more, then started the above plan and I've never had a "job" since.
  • and I'm a Taxi Driver

  • Remember:

    You get better tips if you wear raggedy clothes and print "god bless you" somewhere on your sign. Doubleplus points if you have a baby carriage (don't get a real baby, or CPS [google.com] will come and get you).

    Make sure you stand on the corner just off an off-ramp that leads to an affluent area. Poor people don't give sh~t for "donations."

    "Will work for food" is played out; don't use it. Come up with something original & funny and you'll get a laugh and maybe a fiver.

  • Strange, I've never heard this question before, perhaps most of my friends and collegues took the answer for granted.

    To my experience, there are a number of reasons a prospective employer would hire you:

    1. You have specific knowledge, difficult to come by and often (or not) a result of your PhD work. Considering that PhDs are often high level research and often not ready for direct use in industry in the next few years (typical planning of management), you might be out of luck here.

    2. He has confidence i
  • Pretty much any investment bank on Wall St. is going to hire you straight off and give you about 3 years head start on the salary curve compared to BS and MBAs. Phd with knowledge of stochastic calculus of variations is exactly the kind of mathematical background that these people are looking at. Expect a six figure starting salary before bonus. Hours may be a little long (but so would they be in academia) but given your background you should be able to get in the research side translating to a less stressf
  • I'm working at the National Library of Medicine, part of NIH. I'm doing research in medical visualization and computer graphics. After finishing my Ph.D. in computer science I took a job as a research staff member at another university. Then after a couple years I came to NLM.

    I always knew I didn't want to be tenure-track faculty. It's a lot of things I don't like (teaching, grant writing, committees, trying to churn out papers) and not much time for what I do like (hacking code). As a researcher I ge

  • Thanks for the responses (this is Dr. Nik) (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    To be more specific, I have specialised in the area of wireless systems designing high data rate systems (physical layer, radios, etc.). I also have experience in industry designing wireless products for a well-known company in North America. I am also currently employed in what many here would consider a low paying job (making wages that are below industry standard for those interested in knowing).

    My purpose in asking this question was to get an idea of what people with PhD's are doing these days.

    As on
  • To be more specific, I have specialised in the area of wireless systems optimising high data rate systems at the physical layer. I also have experience in industry designing wireless products for a well-known company in North America. I am basically a 'radio-subsystem-guy'. I am also currently employed in what many here would consider a low paying job (making wages that are below industry standard for those interested in knowing). But I digress. My purpose in asking this question was to get an idea of w
    • Here in Syracuse, NY Lockheed Martin just landed a lucrative contract with the government to create the next generation of radar. They are hiring over 500 people in the next few months. If you can't find it via google or just need some more info, email me at trompelamort AT gmail.com.
    • Where exactly is the physical layer? Do you design the radio at the transistor level? An rf design engineer is a great job with many opportunities? If you have any interest in programming consider the EDA industry (Synopsys, Mentor, Cadence). If you are in the analog design space, there are a tremendous opportunities. Just research and find the right company for you. As the economy is picks up, your knowledge will be in demand.
    • At least most of my PhD friends got into that. This will allow you to broaden your horizons, as well as getting paid well.
  • Well, I interviewed for a semiconductor company that was looking for a Ph. D. Electrical Engineer to fill the position.

    For the record, I have a B.Ch.E. And it says as much on my resume. No idea what the fuck they were thinking. It was an awkward interview. "Soo...uh...I see you don't have a doctorate, or...er...um...any eduction in Electrical Engineering at all...er...I don't know what I'm supposed to ask you."

    Andyway, I suggest you look around. Maybe you'll find a company looking for a PhD EE that a
  • After two years of soul-crushing work in a university for far less than I was worth, I switched into quantitative finance. I've never been happier.

    The pay is better, the hours are better, I'm treated with a degree of respect. Never would have happened if I had stayed in academia.

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