A close friend of mine is looking for a quantitative job outside academia but also outside finance. He has no idea of where to start. Does anyone know a webpage? A guide? Dominic, can you help? He was thinking perhaps gaming industry. Please advice.Background: MPhys in Physics (with Honours in Astrophysics) and PhD in Applied Math (both same top British uni)Area:Computational astronomy, numerical simulation PDEs, magneto-hydro-dynamicsComputing:very good knowledge: C/C++, FORTRAN, HTML/CSS, 80x86 assembler. All in both Linux and Windows environments.good knowledge: Java, Visual Basic, Maple.basic/working knowledge: Perl and other scripting languages.Location:UK

There is the games industry, though since I don't know your friend, I cannot really hate him enough to suggest it.A variant is the film biz, which is just as badly paid, but a bit more fun.High end computer graphics are very maths intensive, and done in C++. Defence pays a bit better, Qinetiq is one possibility.There is a variant on that, but I guess he's not been approached ?There is generic programming, knocking up client/server applications in C#/Java/VB, not badly paid, up until they outsource your job to India, or if they are mad as well as short sighted, EDS.

defense industry.

May I ask you a question? Why should your friend immediately and automatically pigeonhole himself into a techno job? He must know things besides math. Even if he can't , he can learn. We live in a big world. Think expansively. Medicine! Law! Start his own chain of sandwich shoppes! Become the world's expert on coffee! Make beer! Write poetry! Be the next shoelace billionaire.

deepvalue has a good point.Many of you will have read my method for writing your CV, ie the "big list of everything you can do".Certainly there are jobs in applying maths to medicine. Modeling stability big molecules, aiming proton beams through flesh, air and blood flow through partially blocked tubes, etc.I am not aware of any British university that has a properly resourced careers centre, some are quite tragically bad.

QuoteOriginally posted by: deepvalueMay I ask you a question? Why should your friend immediately and automatically pigeonhole himself into a techno job? He must know things besides math. Even if he can't , he can learn. We live in a big world. Think expansively. Medicine! Law! Start his own chain of sandwich shoppes! Become the world's expert on coffee! Make beer! Write poetry! Be the next shoelace billionaire. Easier said than done, more so when somebody has spent 10 years of their youth in developing technical skills and when the bank balance isn't astronomical high.One would definately want to leverage that than making beer/writing poetry.If somebody wants to make beer, write poetry why spend so many years studying science.Maybe when one goes old and has some bank balance but not fresh out of PhD.If someone feels techno Job is a pigeonhole, they would go for an MBA.

What are salaries like in the defence industry? Are these positions applied to directly or DCFC'ed?What kind of background material is needed to study for an interview?Thanks a lot guys.

We don't do defence, typically they take a lot of applications directly.Salaries start mid 20's drift slowly up to 60-70, from what I see.A lot of the general consultancies like Accenture, PWC have openings for people with maths.Pays better, especially if you're white.The stories you've heard about the time I spent at PWC where they made me use the "black people's entrance" are true...IBM has stuff in Scotland, some of it really very mathematical, recall that Mandelbrot was at IBM.The place to do this research is the college library, or if you're near London, the City Business Library, on London Wall.Work your way through the trade publications. There are a lot of different industries.If you can pick up "New Scientist" without vomitting uncontrollably then you will see a variety of jobs there.

Your friend could take a look at Detica (recently acquired by BAE). They have loads of defence work, plus gov, national security, as well as bits of everything else. I used to work there. Lots of Physics PhDs, lots of top UK uni grads, generally smart people. Plus they have interesting projects with genuinely complex problems to solve.