When you say "DoD, DoE, national labs, etc," how are you generating that list?
Unfortunately, it's not a helpful rule: I'm listing places that hired people I know.
And where can I read up on the sorts of positions they tend to have openings in?
You can search usajobs.gov: This position for instance, or this one, both seem feasible for an arbitrary American math PhD.
Both also seem to favor someone with a bit more experience past grad school, but I can look around the site myself later.
I'm vaguely hesitant about the prospect of getting security clearance, I wonder if anyone has a few non-classified words of experience, although I may actually know some mathematicians who do have clearance in which case I might just be able to ask them.
Thank you! I appreciate having any feedback about this at all, it's sort of awkward for me to talk to most people about it.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, even in Discussion, it goes here.