Ask HN: How do I bridge the gap between PhD and SWE experiences?

[ecophyseis]

After finishing my PhD in earth sciences, I pivoted to software engineering. I’ve spent the last 8 years as a full-stack developer, gaining a decent grasp of various stacks and frameworks.

I’m now at a point where I want to merge my scientific background with my engineering experience. However, I’m finding a "missing middle" in the job market. I don't ever see a position that requires and values deep expertise in both.

I enjoy development, but I feel like my scientific training is going to waste. For those who have successfully merged these two paths:

Did you find a "unicorn" role, or did you create one within a company?

How do you market yourself when your two halves feel like they belong to different resumes?

[ptero]

I would use your software skills to get in the door as a software engineer, then weasel into a sciencey position. That is:

1. Find a company that has non-software jobs that you like. Look at what companies advertise on their web sites; go to a few conferences (or watch talks) to see if some talks strike you with "ah, I can and want to do this" vibe; reach out to folks you went to grad school with, etc.

2. Apply and join as a software engineer. Don't try to sit on both chairs (software and science) during the application. You can apply to a science role, but this is likely much harder after 8 years of software focus.

3. Once in, chat with folks working on what you want to work on. Talk to folks you saw give talks. Go to internal presentations, post cool plots in slack, etc. In most companies it is pretty easy to move within roles. Plus, HR is no longer in the filtering pipeline and is not tossing resumes of anyone they think does not have the chops for the position.

Good luck!

As a personal data point -- I decided, late in my math PhD, to switch from academia to the industry after completion. A few times I switched jobs I went in as a software engineer, but within a few months moved to working on things I wanted to do beyond software (algorithms for tracking, perception, signal processing, sensor fusion, etc.).

[jandrewrogers]

This is the way. I've seen this successfully done many times. The barrier to entry is much lower once you already work at a company and just about everybody needs more software engineers than they can find.

[heisenbit]

Good point, get into the right company and move to a place you like. I did that way back moving from lab to customer service (right company and right country) to get into the R&D I wanted. Easier to execute in a company that is rapidly expanding.

[ecophyseis]

This is a good suggestion and probably the most realistic path. The only trouble is that I'm in a small-ish city in Europe and have to work remotely, which makes networking hard. I worked at a company where I sort of tried to do this before but it was really hard to have casual connections with science people.

[ufmace]

It sounds like the kind of job you really want is going to be a bit of a unicorn. That means those kinds of jobs don't get advertised in job boards and have professional recruiters running around looking for candidates that fit. That in turn means that finding such a job is going to be a lot of networking and shoeleather. You'll probably have to go to a bunch of conferences, talk to people, and make contacts, and hope you can discover a place where your unique skills are a greater value to somebody's project than anyone with expertise in only one of those fields could be.

[William_BB]

Well put. The standard practice is to hire a scientist and a developer, both with deep expertise, and have them work together. For a successful collaboration, it's obviously desirable for them to have some cross-disciplinary skills or experience. Ultimately, you're still primarily doing either development or research.

[jp57]

“Bridging the gap between PhD and SWE” would be a good subtitle for my career.

I started out writing software for scientists, psychologists, first at a university, then a small company. After eight years of that I went to grad school and got a PhD in CS (ML/AI), and did a postdoc, before going into industry, and eventually landed a role in what was then called “data mining”, later “data science”, then “machine learning engineering”. In the beginning when the team was small, we were all generalists, doing both the science work and the engineering. As we grew, specialized roles developed, but I was able to chart a course somewhere between a SWE and a scientist, doing a lot of knowledge work, experiments, measurement, and presentation, but also building common tools that the rest of the team can use.

I’ve been out of the job market for 15 years now, but I think any company that does science and builds software would value your skillset. In fact, when I was shifting from academia to industry, I started out determined to be a “scientist”. After all, what was my PhD for, anyway? But my SWE chops were pretty evident on my resume, and I had a hard time getting traction. Then I got brought in for an interview at a company that had a team of scientists and a team of engineers and they brought me in for a split interview with both teams. It was clear by the end that they wanted me as an engineer, but I was insistent on wanting to be a scientist. They didn’t offer me a job, and I was disappointed. The disappointment was educational for me, and I rewrote my resume to put more emphasis on my SWE skills, and that made it easier to find a role that fit me.

[sheepscreek]

> I’ve been out of the job market for 15 years now

Wow - that's a long time at one company, or being without a job. Could you share more on that? Simple curiosity, thanks.

[jp57]

I've been at the same company, and in the same team/dept for all that time. When I started I was in my early 40s with a family and had moved three times in the previous four years, and I was certainly ready to stay put if I liked the job. It turned out that the job was great. We were a small and scrappy team, fighting for recognition in a big company, and we got the recognition and grew explosively. The comp and benefits were good, and the management humane. The growth meant I had opportunities to do new things. I became a tech lead and then a manager. As a manager, I got to see how comp, and promotion, and hiring, and firing worked. And I got a lot more empathy in general for the work that management does that ICs generally never see.

After a few years I got tired and somewhat bored with being a manager, and asked my director to move back to a senior IC role and he facilitated that for me.

TBH, I have always had my doubts about the narrative that short tenures are the norm in tech. It has always sounded to me like a misreading of the statistical distribution: if you were to histogram the length of tenure of every job (person+company) in tech over some period, of course there would be a big hump at the left end. That's natural, because they are short. I myself have three jobs of less than two years and one each of six, eight, and 15 (if you count grad school as a job). So that's 12 years in the the four shorter stints and 23 in the two longer ones.

[ecophyseis]

I went through something similar. Ended up under-emphasizing my science background because I noticed that it turned people off.

[jp57]

You don't say what it means for you to have under-emphasized it, or what the consequences were, but my changes mostly consisted of changing the preamble of my resume to be clearer that I was willing to take dev jobs, though I was really only likely to apply in "sciency" roles.

When I said I was disappointed when I didn't get the job in the story above, what I meant was that I was disappointed that they didn't offer me the SWE job, and I kicked myself for telling them I didn't want it. But really I only knew that I wanted it after I didn't get it.

[curl_e]

Allow me to suggest Research Software Engineering - https://society-rse.org/careers/rse-stories/

US Organisation - https://us-rse.org/ UK (but also worldwide) - https://society-rse.org/

There are RSEs who specialise in Earth Science, e.g. https://socrse.github.io/geoscience-sig/

[rramadass]

This is what i immediately thought of too. Some more links;

Research Software Engineers - https://researchsoftware.org/

Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_software_engineering (checkout References/Further Reading etc.)

Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/ResearchSoftwareEng/

PS: LinkedIn shows me a bunch of jobs with this designation (though many seem to be AI/ML related).

[ecophyseis]

That's amazing! Thank you!

[hmokiguess]

Usually jobs in established corporations have a specific goal, task, or focus that maps directly to the company's bottom-line and ROI. Research, on the other hand, requires funding and is more like an investment strategy for a company. If you want to create your job, and bridge that gap, then try and marry the two. How could the fruits of your work improve a company's bottom line?

My experience working and hiring PhDs in the past has been one that they sometimes are used to this being defined for them and/or used to applying to grants/funds in established academic environments but rarely do they think of creating the path themselves (except for some outliers). The fact that you are already thinking of that puts you in that category.

Lastly, when working at the edge of something and creating your job, be ready for this mantra: https://37signals.com/13

[gsliepen]

I did move from physics to becoming a SWE. I could put the knowledge I gained doing 3D rendering and GPU compute used for visualization and simulations in my academic jobs on my CV, and get a job as a SWE that way. Later I moved to another job where I could use my physics background to help develop a new sensor.

As for how to market yourself: first you should convert your academic CV to one that is suited for the type of companies you are applying for. Unless you wrote something that ended up in Nature or some other super high profile journal, companies typically don't care about your publications. What they do care about is things like: can you communicate well? How well can you organize things on your own? Do you handle stress well? You did a PhD, so the answer to those things is yes, you just need to write that in your CV in a way a company recruiter/interviewer understands, even if they themselves are not from academia. So you don't have two halves that belong to different resumes, you are just one person and you just translate your resume to the "language" that your prospective job provider speaks.

Finally, your list of skills does not need to be a perfect match for what a company is looking for. Of course, there needs to be some overlap, but as long as it means you can pick up new things quickly, it will be fine. That and being a good fit for the company's culture are the most important things.

I did not start out with a unicorn role, but in I found ways to apply my physics background in my current job.

[thePhytochemist]

Consider laboratory automation?

I work in that now. I am going through the same issue as you after studying science (there are many of us!). Jobs rarely overlap, wanting both skillsets. Am I ever going to do this scientific work I learned about? I feel entering this area has been progress.

I'm on the 'science' side right now, after doing CAD, software and firmware for a few years. The previous robots I made were not for scientific work. Now I make liquid handling robots for laboratories and I hope that my scientific skills will be valued in the workplace.

In the workplace, people mostly seem to want you to choose a box and stay in it rather than using a varied skillset. Right now I can say I "make robots" but mostly I take parts, put them in the machine we make and use them for a bit then send them on their way as tested items. The robot is largely a black box - I'm not allowed to see the CAD, software or firmware it runs, certainly not use my skills in those areas. But I'll keep trying - to bring value to the employer and find more interesting/valued work using the skills I've gained over the years. Entering a workplace for whatever they want then moving within it over time is a time tested strategy, especially in government because they are unionized and very rarely fire anyone.

Keep in mind funding sources during your search. In Canada we have SRED, which is a tax rebate for scientific work and easy to get. People, even if they studied science, seem to perceive scientific work as expensive and mostly useless so subsidies like this really help. Since it's a rebate that means you must work for a company that already has revenue, not a small startup. Look for a company with at least a room they call a lab and they will keep time sheets for all "R&D" work.

[ecophyseis]

I would very much be interested in this but there's nothing in my CV that suggests that I'd be good at it, except for some basic electronics I did for fun.

[austin-cheney]

A PhD means you can do novel research. As a full stack developer what novel subject(s) did you explore? That is the middle you are missing.

A big part of the problem is that you were spending time with tech stacks and frameworks. These have almost no practical utility value aside from attaining employment in a low skill area of software. I am saying that as a former 15 year JavaScript developer. Instead use your research background to solve real problems faced by businesses and users that you can measure.

[Timoha]

Top-tier hedge funds are always looking for PhDs with engineering background, it’s a great combo of doing original research and being able to productionalize it

[ecophyseis]

Interesting. Where would one look for these kinds of jobs? I am not really familiar with hedge funds.

[thisrod]

I succeeded at this. My academic physics career petered out, then I stumbled into an industry role with almost as much physics as I was doing in my quantum mechanics postdoc.

The jobs you're looking for are rare, but they do exist. There must be a bunch of them in this project, for example:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-22/lake-george-earthquak...

In my case, the unicorn factor worked both ways. The job was advertised for a year before my hiking partner encouraged me to apply, and it took a few months more before I did. From that point, the job was easy to get.

In this job market, supply and demand are reasonably well matched; the problem is that the market is very illiquid. Science jobs are rare to begin with, and people stay in them for decades, so vacancies are even rarer.

On the one hand, a programmer at my company who was interested and capable of switching to optics could have had my role by asking for it. On the other hand, if you joined the company as a programmer, you would have had to wait 5 years for an optics role to come up.

So my advice is to stay in touch with your friends from the earth science days, and expect this to take a long time. Good luck!

[ecophyseis]

Thank! I actually worked with people in that article :) Now I'm based in Europe so my grad school friends work at companies in a different continent, so so far, no luck there.

[buddyhollyclone]

I'm in much the same boat - however my SWE pivot was when I attempted to commercialize my PhD research along with my advisor. We had a startup for a few years and then got acquired by a global company. I now manage a team of SWEs and coordinate with SMEs in technical fields to make sure that our scientific software products are great in both areas. These roles exist, but probably not commonly as a straight hybrid - may have to lean into one and use the other as a differentiator/value-add. For me, I think I got here by caring about the customer experience first - which takes "whatever it takes" - software and science both. I have to be an evangelist for both of these things but only as a means to a common end, which is to help the end users expand their understanding and abilities with applied knowledge.

[clickety_clack]

I have a multidisciplinary background as well, and always found it frustrating that everyone wants you to be one thing. Eventually I just started my own company, and now I’m using everything I know.

[rubidium]

Make a list of the most interesting companies / areas you want to work in from a scientific perspective

Cold call or get introductions to their R&D leaders (principal researcher /director / VP). While connecting to something they or their company did, ask for a coffee meeting or phone call to learn more about their company and how it works.

Use this to Network network network. At some point a job will appear with interviews. Chances are good it’s with a good manager as they’re the ones taking time to build good teams and talent.

[dahart]

Depends on what aspects of your scientific training you want to re-engage with. Do you want to be writing & publishing, giving talks, doing experiments, or building predictive statistical models? And what kind of software do you want to continue writing? Application development? More full-stack, with both backend and frontend? It is indeed hard to imagine places where you can find a strong mix of both.

If you want to mix earth sciences with development, you could look for positions on the Google Earth Engine team, or check out weather companies that do R&D like Purple Air. I imagine there’s plenty of software work mixed with earth sciences in the oil, gas, and mining industries; aviation & ocean shipping; hydroelectric, solar, and wind power maybe.

Being an earth sciences researcher is highly likely to involve writing software, whereas the average SWE role is not likely to need research, so my instinct would be to say just look research roles. Do most of today’s earth sciences researchers not spend a lot of their time at least writing statistical software in Python or R? My brother’s an anthropologist, and over the last decade his job has become more and more writing software to process datasets and do statistics.

If you’re just looking for a scientific mindset and a role that does experimentation, many companies (especially growing startups) have data science departments that, at a minimum, drive A-B testing experiments. Occasionally you can find applied research positions that are listed as just SWE roles, but those might be hard to find - I’d start by asking academic departments for leads.

[RobRivera]

I'm a military veteran; early on I pigeon-holed my precious life and training and focused on the needs of the markets and the roles I sought out.

I found this productive from a learning perspective, to prevent bias and trying to shoehorn a style that may not be optimal for the work.

Now after nearly a decade of work I have been able to bridge the gap for your alleged 'missing middle'.

This is where I diverge from your perspective; I take the personal growth and skill perspective to navigating my career. That is to say, I focus on solving the problems I want, researching what skills are most effective with an open mind that I may bring something novel from my past, and grow from there.

I think if you search for the PERFECT role leveraging your skills, you may wait a long time. Find a problem--artistic, commercial, or otherwise stimulating--that you would be willing to pursue in your free time. For me: this was video game development, however I forked my development from most paradigms circa 2003, and been reinventing many wheels for the sake of deeper knowledge.

You may be lucky to find a role which leverages everything you may find your personal skills are, but if a role isnt, dont discounts the principles it took to succeed at something as dema ding as a PhD.

I hope you find this perspective valuable!

[brudgers]

I feel like my scientific training is going to waste

Your training is a sunk cost.

It is also the source of soft skills.

[MrDarcy]

As a hiring manager, if someone shared a profile of a person with a PHD in earth sciences and 8 years of “full stack” experience I’d immediately assume they were a generalist with surface level familiarity and no mastery or depth in any one area.

I’d then look over the profile trying to disprove my assumption. Lacking a very strong signal in mastery of something, I’d pass on the profile.

Only at small scales are full stack engineers valuable. Their value is not in the quality of their output but in their ability to deliver make shift with that avoids having to pay for specialist who can deliver quality.

Assuming there is product market fit then generalists are replaced by specialists. This is where the true value aligns in terms of high quality output being compensated proportional to value created.

Given all this my advice is to pick two complementary areas, specialize in those areas and develop deep mastery. Keep your broad general skills. Then market yourself as the T or H shaped engineer that’s most valuable.

[heisenbit]

> Only at small scales are full stack engineers valuable.

Only if a software or integration problem is labeled neatly with the system and expertise required one can afford such thinking. Is the issue in the front-end, backend, gateways, middleware stack, network or compute? But even more dangerous are ‚valuable‘ narrow experts designing systems without awareness of the limitations in all other layers.

[ecophyseis]

> As a hiring manager, if someone shared a profile of a person with a PHD in earth sciences and 8 years of “full stack” experience I’d immediately assume they were a generalist with surface level familiarity and no mastery or depth in any one area.

I learned that the hard way. I used to think my science background as an asset but I stopped mentioning my science background after seeing people's reaction in interviews.

[gcarvalho]

> Only at small scales are full stack engineers valuable.

Seems like the ideal career is to start somewhere big and successful enough that allows you to specialize (after some poor generalists sabotaged their own careers by making it a thriving environment for specialists). Because even small scale businesses think they should start by hiring specialists.

[burkaman]

https://us-rse.org/jobs/

[jcpst]

I keep the two halves separate.

I was a studio recording engineer for about 7 years. I switched to software, and now I work in industrial global logistics. Job attributes I optimized for over the years: insulated from manufactured stress, autonomy, control over working hours, good relationships with my boss and coworkers.

[Joel_Mckay]

Sounds like a GIS company may be a good fit, or another related service. =3

https://www.esri.com/en-us/about/careers/job-search

https://www.jpl.jobs/c/educational-jobs

https://www.spacex.com/careers/jobs?programs=Starlink&discip...

[spiffy2025]

Personally I don't have a PhD, but do have several advanced degrees. From experience, I'd suggest look into deeptech companies that are looking for SWEs. Deep tech companies typically need folks with the ability to pursue scientific enquiry with a SWE / Product mindset.

I work at a company that is hiring folks that have a background in (helio)physicists / quantum (I think we have about 3 nobel prize labs represented right now in a team of 9) with SWE / ML experience (EDIT: and Full Stack Developers), to build products for the aerospace industry. Not exactly earth science, but if Heliophysics / Physics is of interest, my masked email in profile.

[legel]

I happen to have a background at this interface as well, as the founder of DeepEarth and Ecodash.ai. I can tell you that I would greatly value such experience in collaboration, although I am not currently hiring. While having such a specific interdisciplinary niche can feel limiting, I also see it as a potential superpower in excelling in a very important domain. I'll also add that machine learning and other modeling techniques are a great bridge between classical natural sciences and modern tech today, that I would look for in collaborators. More specifically from the earth sciences, "GeoAI" would be a key focus.

[baobun]

I haven't done it myself but know a few people who did. They were all on the academic track and just made it happen and supporting their respective labs as postdocs. With an allowing or aligned professor I think it's very relistic in academia. From there you might find overlapping industry opportunities down the line. And I guess you have to be OK with pushing the envelope yourself.

I don't think it's at all as rare as I see other commenters say. I don't know earth sciences specifically but I'd be surprised if there is a STEM field where a strong SWE expertise isn't an asset you can put to regular use in research.

[Lyngbakr]

I have a PhD in a similar field to Earth Science and now I'm an engineering team lead at a company in a field related to my PhD. This is the second such role I've held like this and it was very much that I found a perfect position in both cases. I think a key part of being able to combine my domain and technical expertise in a single role was that the jobs were at startups where there's often the need for folks to wear multiple hats. That said, in the past decade since leaving academia I have perhaps seen a handful of such jobs. So, they do exist, but are few and far between, IME.

[BeetleB]

My background was in grad level physics. Twice in my career I've actually gotten jobs that make use of my technical skills. Both times it was a big mistake. While the work was cool, the work environment was terrible (including pay).

Once you get used to being paid well for "easy" work, it's hard to put up with attitudes when you're getting paid less (or even the same) doing "hard" work. If you don't perform, your employment is at stake, and you'll realize there's value in having a job that you don't have doubts you can do.

[CommenterPerson]

You are special. There are lots and lots of "software engineers" in the world. Very very few can bring scientific experience and knowledge to the job. I might look for a developer role in a large university project where they need programming skills and scientific rigor. Or a R&D person in a large software company or the government . These kinds of jobs aren't listed on Indeed or Monster. Attend conferences related to your field (don't attend the talks, hang around in the lobby and chat with people). Reach out to professors in your university or your field.

All the Best!

[William_BB]

Some examples: machine learning scientists and engineers; quants and (quant) developers.

In either case, you're primarily either a developer or a scientist/researcher. Unless you're at an early stage startup or in a principal/managerial role, chances are your time is better spent deeply focusing on one area rather than both. Either putting the system to production or doing research. A lot of the time, these tasks can be carried out in parallel -- while one person is carrying out research, the other can be improving the system.

[GianFabien]

I see you having a unique opportunity. There is a scarcity of strong SWE skills in the earth sciences related industries/businesses. You could refresh your reasons, motivations and interests for choosing earth sciences for your PhD. Perhaps your thesis and research connections reveal further dimensions.

In any earth sciences based work, there would be requirements for either data sciences or AI related processing, improvements, etc. Those are the sorts of areas that you might want to peddle your SWE skills as delivering.

[boogieknite]

this is quite close to my boss's experience. he was an ecology major and phd in geography. i think you probably have about twice the software experience he had before merging the two

his application is quite simple and repeatable: optimizing field measurements through apps. or more simply, really good forms and reports. we focus on forestry but have been able to repeatedly repackage and adjust our software for clients who need to go someplace, fill out a form, and then report on that later and/or submit it to some unique system (etl stuff)

a phd proves you mastered a language and knowledge of process applicable to communicating with subject matter experts. youre certified in the scientific method. even when my boss doesnt have direct experience in a specific field, he can make an analogy to other client or phd work. clients are confident you can meet with members across their team to plan, implement, and test software to optimize their workflow without much hand holding

another thing: he does a lot of talks. after a few talks now he's asked all the time and one of ESRI's first calls for an alternate at conferences. a lot of this is the phd title. if you dont loathe public speaking too much than this can open doors to conversations with clients, professional partners, or institutions developing new tech

[esafak]

With a background like that you should be doing machine learning if you want to combine science and software. And climate tech is a burgeoning field.

I see many relevant openings in https://www.climatetechlist.com/jobs

[chrisra]

Maybe try finding a software engineering job at a place that also uses your scientific expertise. You may be able to find or create opportunities there. The position might not exist, but you can maximize your chances of something coming your way that needs both skill sets.

[thatguymike]

Not easy, but I have a friend who did this by reaching back out to his old professors and colleagues, figuring out what they needed, and ended up doing a swe project in his old lab and built that into a consultancy which does tech partnering for science.

[juujian]

Do you have a CV for more context? Work in a more academic setting is always highly context dependent, as you know.

Chances are, there are a handful of labs, somewhere that could benefit from the overlap, but finding them is like finding the needle in the haystack.

[huevosabio]

Apply to the research labs of the big tech companies. Both aspects will be valued.

It may be harder if you want to do only earth sciences, but if you're open to many areas of research, then the FAANGs will probably take you.

[markzporter]

Maybe it's a bit on the nose, but Kobold Metals would probably appreciate both skill sets: https://koboldmetals.com/

[DANmode]

Keep reviewing niche businesses and industries.

I thought I’d never be able to bridge my specialties when I was younger - I just hadn’t put the puzzle pieces together yet.

Being willing to start your own thing can help a lot, too.

[grayxu]

The reason is that you are not a Computer Science PhD. But soft skills (such as storytelling, sense of ownership, etc.) can still be passed down

[mathgeek]

It's a bit ironic that the "soft" skills are becoming the hard skills nowadays. A lot of the AI buzz these days is around PM's, Data Scientists, etc. who now have the tools to code "well enough" and are attractive due to their people skills and/or other skillsets.

Not to say this is an objective analysis, just observing the subjective trends.

[ludicrousdispla]

If you're in the US then you will need to wait a year at least for any new job opportunities related to science.

[adw]

Did you do any serious simulations work? If so, machine learning. (PhD in mineral physics, staff ML engineer at a FAANG.)

[ecophyseis]

Not sure about seriousness but I did some simulation work regarding seismic wave propagation. Would that apply?

[adw]

Wouldn’t hurt. (The key thing is; have you done work which involved serious linear algebra? I was an electronic structure person, so I’m not familiar with the geophys stuff.)

[nextworddev]

Don’t worry, SWE profession won’t really exist in 5 years as it currently stands

[petermcneeley]

I thought AGI was 2027. Given it is a week from 2026 we only have 1 year left right?

[nextworddev]

We don't need AGI to replace the median dev

[dvrj101]

From. > SWE profession won’t really exist To. > we don't median dev (another vague term)

bunch of goalpost moving statements.

[nextworddev]

How so? Median is a concrete metric.

[dogma1138]

Have you looked at data science / analytics companies such as Kantar?

[didip]

It’s there, in data science or data analytics positions.

[checker659]

Have you tried talking to someone at places like ESRI?

[ecophyseis]

Good suggestion, my skills overlap a lot with what ESRI does actually. Thanks!

[tigerlily]

Go get a job at Seequent?

Or fully bootstrap with a competing product?