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Comment by Loic | Hacker News Reader

Working in the chemical engineering area. Hard science + all the cool technologies you can read on HN => Fun + money. Usually a contract starts at $15k (2 weeks) and goes up to 2 months of work on average.

I always advice people to go the hard science way if they like computer science, because there is a really big big lack of people being good at both. I should write about it.

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I should write about it.

Please do.

If you ever get a chance, please do, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

I've thought about going into a hard science industry but never did anything about it because 1) I'm not really qualified in the science side, my skills/experience/qualifications are in computer science and 2) I don't really know how to get started.

There are opportunities to pick it up. I have worked in bioinformatics labs and have learned tons of biology and chemistry just through osmosis. Also, they always need more people that program well.

You could get started by watching MIT physics and mathematics opencourseware courses (including video lectures) to see if it suits you.

How do you go about finding such projects in hard science? Is there a gigs board or is it through networking mainly?

the one thing about hard science - it's a specialty that can distinguish you from general programming, which may increase the rate. however, you don't want to get in the business of competing with graduate students, who are accustomed to doing very difficult work for very little money.

I did a lot of operations-research type programming in grad school, and I thought it would set me apart, but I've found that the jobs that want programming and OR skills don't seem to pay any better than other types of programming. This is jobs, not consulting gigs, though, and I'm only basing this on a few data points.

I'd also be interested in what you have to write about it.

Off-topic: what books do you recommend on chemical engineering? What's the equivalent of The Art of Electronics for analog electronics, or HDL Chip Design for digital chip design, or Code Complete or Algorithms in C or CLRS or The Pragmatic Programmer or SICP or TAOCP for software?

There are very few "sit down and read" type books about chemical engineering. That being said, there are two books that I reference every day: the first physically, the second philosophically.

1) Perry's Handbook for Chemical Engineers (Perry)

2) Conceptual Design of Chemical Processes (Douglas)

Perry's is the end all be all for technical reference.

Conceptual Design is incredibly useful for learning how to quickly and accurately design an entire process. If anything, it'll teach you the best methods to go about "back of the hand" calculations for sanity checks.

Thank you very much!

Yeah, please do. And if you can, please, I need to know if it's possible to do it remotely (or with a meeting or two at most).

- I mean, I'm not from a developed country. Is that still possible that I can take advantage of mastering both skills? I'm currently a Medicine student with good programming skills. -

absolutely. I've done a lot of work with automation of fabrication and testing instruments (fiberoptics) and the money's definitely good.

its also an amazing learning opportunity (and play. but never take close up photos of your phone. you'll become OCD about clean pretty fast)

that brings up a question for me. when you say $15K/2weeks, is that for a task that can be accomplished by a single person (2x40h), or do you have to break the job up amongst other people?

Just me, it is usually complex stuff where only one person or two in tandem can do the work. I would be pleased to be able to offload some of the work to other people, but it is hard to find people having the right skills — the niche effect, few skilled people.

What kind of skills are you looking for?

just a suggestion. maybe you can create a training system, where people can "shadow you", and the possibly take some of the load off of you. of course i understand that the work is complex, so perhaps someone with the necessary academic background, but not fully knowledgeable of the tech side yet?

How regular is this? Wouldn't that mean you could earn nearly $400k a year?

Woah woah woah. Don't forget take into account the overheads in consulting.

Just off the top of my head you'd need to think about winning each contract, paying taxes, holidays, health cover, professional indemnity, sick leave, misc business expendables (like office, phone, ISP), the list goes on.

Don't get me wrong. It is still good money I'm sure.

I'm pretty niche.. can I write you?

That sounds interesting. Can I email you?

I'm a chemical engineer myself, and often wondered if there were any others interested in programming as much as I am. I'd be interested to see what sorts of marriages you have made between the two fields. Do you have any links you could post or send me?

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