I am a Systems Engineer at Raytheon Electronic Systems, in Bedford Massachusetts. As a member of the System Design Laboratory, I create and analyze hardware and software designs based on technical merit, reliability, and cost.
My technical work involves simulation of these designs to prove they meet our requirements, so I have to create mathematical models that are as faithful to reality as possible. I use Linear Algebra, mechanics, statistics, differential equations, linear dynamical systems, and time series/digital signal processing on a daily basis. I would strongly suggest courses in any and all of the above to Mathematicians looking for jobs in industry. Other courses or skills would include computer programming, public speaking, and at least one writing intensive course.
The members of my immediate workgroup of seven all have advanced degrees or are working toward them. Three have Ph.D.’s in Mathematics, one has a Masters in Mathematics, and three have B.S.’s in Engineering or Physics but are working towards a Master’s degree in Engineering. Our managers almost all have either Ph.D.’s or Masters degrees, but in Engineering.
I’ve been with Raytheon since 1997, when I was recruited directly out of graduate school. I started out as a Senior Engineer I, doing purely technical work. After 6 months, I was slowly assigned more managerial responsibility, such as task management (what needs to be done), cost account management (budget and scheduling) and requirements review (have we met our contractual obligations?). Management issues can be a headache and if you want to, you can stay as purely technical as you like, but I prefer to have control of the direction of my work. I also now have one person working under me and will likely soon have more.
The main reason I went into industry was to apply my math skills to real-world problems. I had a great deal of fun working on my math thesis in Combinatorial Group Theory and Graph Theory, and I liked being part of a small, exclusive group working on the frontier of the subject. However, the flip side was that I felt like I was working in a vacuum; when I finished a part of the problem, I would have a good time going through it with my advisor, but beyond that there wasn’t really that much interest. I started looking for applications of the subject, but when mathematicians write an “Applications in…” book, it usually means applications to other mathematics (I’ve since found a good Engineering applications in Graph Theory book).
I received a bachelors in Mathematics at the University of Chicago, and while finishing up my Ph.D. in Mathematics at SUNY, Albany, I got a Masters in Statistics, also at SUNY, and passed Actuarial exams. I interviewed at both Actuarial and Engineering companies, and it wasn’t a clear choice between the two. The criteria that pulled me toward Raytheon were that they valued my Ph.D. more highly and seemed to have more technically challenging work.
Newly minted doctorates in the job market have probably all had the feeling during some job interview that they were at a disadvantage because of their degree. Don’t take it personally, the interviewing company has probably had a bad and expensive experience in the past with a Ph.D., and it’s up to you to demonstrate that you shouldn’t be lumped with them. I was told during one interview that if I wanted to, I could work in a back room and never see a customer. I politely let the interviewer know that I didn’t mind meeting with customers, and that my social skills were only slightly atrophied by academia. The interviewer seemed pleasantly surprised, and the rest of the interview went well.
For any mathematician looking to work in Industry, I would highly recommend getting a project through a local company or organization and presenting it to non-mathematicians. The one point that almost every recruiter pulled out of my resume was that I had presented analysis of Labor data to members of the New York State Department of Labor. You want to show that you can work through a problem without having all of the necessary information laid out and demonstrate a useful solution to non-techies.
