[darkclouds]

> I have no knowledge of what is required in the job market

Read the news, its that simple, you can see problems that need solving all the time. Its harder to find out what needs solving in business because they are by nature private. Thats not to say, you cant find problems in business which need solving when you are a customer of theirs.

Define a big programming project? Do you want to work in a big team or on a project as the sole coder for something that is the biggest in whatever domain/field its in. Global business, national business, small business?

Lots of ways you could approach this, not being sarcastic, but wouldnt your combinatorial optimization be the perfect foundation to plan your future life?

In the mean time, I'll be reading the comments, to see if problems in industry are being made public which could be monetarised and solved with code.