Hi Tom,
Hmmm, really interesting points and background you have. It's cool that you enjoyed and gravitated towards the abstract stuff rather than the practical (I was quite the opposite for my B Sc. in Math).
I'm curious, why do you think that is? Do you enjoy covering new ground, the art of problem solving, etc.?
Another question I would ask yourself is how important is money to you? Do you have any financial goals? It sounds like you could have the skill set for a high-paying programming job. Maybe a type of math related job on the trading floor where you are forced to innovate different ways of modelling things, working tightly with a team?
Another random idea I'd throw out is the idea of a sinecure: think Einstein at the patent post office. Maybe you are content making a moderate sum of money doing something with concrete deadlines and tasks where you can easily check boxes, but also want to stimulate your brain with a good team that pushes each other in their own respect.
I work on a lot of personal projects outside of my job-job, and I have found Discord is a great way of making those connections.
I hope these prompts were helpful; happy to follow up for more ideation. :)
think Einstein at the post office
Einstein was at the patent office not the post office. The patent office is an intellectually stimulating environment.
Financial goals aren't top of my priorities right now, though I am blithely assuming any job I find interesting to do will give me enough to get by. Working in trading/finance is definitely something on my radar.
Sinecure is something I had considered (though I hadn't heard the name for the concept before). Past experience tells me I don't really spend my time productively without some external guidance or pressure, but it is something I want to improve on. What sort of projects do you work on outside of your job?
This does not quite match your question, but I want to recommend taking a look at https://80000hours.org/ if you don't already know them.
Their focus is on providing resources for impactful altruistic careers, but they still have lots of nice general advice regarding job satisfaction and how to approach the topic of career choice. There also are examples where people describe their experiences with different career paths or the content of the paths themselves and lots more.
Depending how much you are interested in an altruistic focus for your career, you'll find a larger or smaller portion of their writing relevant, but there is a lot of good stuff in any case :)
I just found the link for their summary on job-satisfaction in particular: https://80000hours.org/career-guide/job-satisfaction/
I am a Phd student who has just submitted my thesis, and I am not sure what to do with myself, so I would like some advice on interesting jobs/fields/career paths to consider. I would welcome suggestions of particular roles or companies, some generic guidance, or pointers to other resources. I have included what I think is all the relevant information to my job search below, but I will happily provide more details/clarification if needed.
Thanks for any advice or suggestions.