Where are the non-fed, non-defense STEM jobs in the DC area

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of the IT consulting firms? Many have a commercial side.

IT departments at large commercial companies? (Marriott, Nestle, Capital One, etc.).

for CapOne, Navy Federal, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

try

TCS - http://www.careers.tcs.com/CareersDesign/Jsps/CareersHome.jsp
Hexaware - http://hexaware.com/career-home.htm
Infosys - http://www.infosys.com/careers/
Wipro - http://careers.wipro.com/it/experienced/america/
HCL - http://www.hcltech.com/careers/explore-hcl-india

CapOne, Navy Federal, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have moved to a variable cost labor model for IT services and rarely hire US citizens directly when there are hundreds of thousands of available cheap labor to rent.

[Anonymous]

What type of physics?
Your degree and skills could potentially be applicable for positions at NIH and NASA. Spouse is at NIH and knows of people with PhDs in physics doing bioinformatics, data science types of roles.

[Anonymous]

what skills do you have?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I moved to the area to work as a government scientist (physics). Am now ready to move on. I've always thought of DC as having lots of science and technology jobs, but all I'm finding are positions with defense contractors. Who else should I be looking at?

Trade associations that have research arms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What type of physics?
Your degree and skills could potentially be applicable for positions at NIH and NASA. Spouse is at NIH and knows of people with PhDs in physics doing bioinformatics, data science types of roles.

You need to be more specific. Spouse at NASA, fed, but not defense. Not affected by budget cuts. Most of the non fed physics jobs around here are going to be contractor jobs working at fed contracts. Academia jobs are really hard to find

[Anonymous]

What made you think DC was good for non-fed and non-defense STEM jobs?
DC is not a hot bed of tech development.

There are some fantastic STEM jobs at APL or NASA or NIH, depending on your areas of expertise, but they're all government in some form or another. And tons of smaller "beltway bandit" STEM contracting companies, but at the end of the day almost all of them end up being subs for government.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What made you think DC was good for non-fed and non-defense STEM jobs?
DC is not a hot bed of tech development.

There are some fantastic STEM jobs at APL or NASA or NIH, depending on your areas of expertise, but they're all government in some form or another. And tons of smaller "beltway bandit" STEM contracting companies, but at the end of the day almost all of them end up being subs for government.

More tot he point, most of the jobs are from DoD contractors. Not sure of NIST.

[Anonymous]

Have you considered science policy, if not in government, then for nonprofits like American Physical Society?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What made you think DC was good for non-fed and non-defense STEM jobs?
DC is not a hot bed of tech development.

There are some fantastic STEM jobs at APL or NASA or NIH, depending on your areas of expertise, but they're all government in some form or another. And tons of smaller "beltway bandit" STEM contracting companies, but at the end of the day almost all of them end up being subs for government.

More tot he point, most of the jobs are from DoD contractors. Not sure of NIST.

NIST is awful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you considered science policy, if not in government, then for nonprofits like American Physical Society?

OP will not get a permanent policy job at AIP or APS without real policy experience, in government. And you are unlikely to be successful in a science policy role if you don't have a genuine interest in it. There are, however, several fellowship programs that could give you a leg up, but I'm pretty sure you are ineligible for many of them if you are currently a Fed.

If you really want to get into policy and you are a Fed, you're better off figuring out ways to detail into a policy-oriented position in another agency. I have a friend who did this from a scientist position, and they are now a Program Officer for a research program at a different agency (I'm not giving specifics because it will likely out the person).

[Anonymous]

Biomed jobs are in Maryland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What made you think DC was good for non-fed and non-defense STEM jobs?
DC is not a hot bed of tech development.

There are some fantastic STEM jobs at APL or NASA or NIH, depending on your areas of expertise, but they're all government in some form or another. And tons of smaller "beltway bandit" STEM contracting companies, but at the end of the day almost all of them end up being subs for government.

More tot he point, most of the jobs are from DoD contractors. Not sure of NIST.

NIST is awful

NIST was the best place I ever worked—but I could not get a permanent position. For those who did it was pretty much heaven and I’ve never heard of anyone leaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I moved to the area to work as a government scientist (physics). Am now ready to move on. I've always thought of DC as having lots of science and technology jobs, but all I'm finding are positions with defense contractors. Who else should I be looking at?

Old thread, but maybe still relevant to some people. As a federal physicist I would guess you are at NIST, NRL, or some such. Unless your position is unstable, I wonder why you'd wish to leave; those are tough positions to get and from the outside at least they seem excellent--no teaching, not much struggling for funding, federal benefits, etc.

For pure science positions, DC is hard: having grown up here, I don't at all think of it as a place with a lot of S&T opportunities outside of defense. DC you will find a lot of quasi-science jobs like scientific reviewer (USPTO, FDA), program manager or officer (DOE, NSF, ARO, NIH), etc. Some physicists work at places like SAIC and MITRE that do defense contracting, but also non-defense work. A few I know went to places like Capital One and Fannie Mae and model interest rates. And then, as you mention, there are jobs with defense contractors.

I grew up in DC, but relocated away after spending several years in a policy-type position. I was surprised how easy it was for me to reenter R&D--an opportunity I was never really able to find in DC.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

OP here. Funny to be looking through this forum (which I do less of now that I'm not job-hunting) and think "that thread looks familiar."

In the end, I decided to stay in government after all and moved to a different agency where I already had several work-friends. I realized I have it pretty good here, love my colleagues, enjoy an enviable degree of work-life balance. Not quite as challenged as I'd like to be scientifically, but I might just have to be more aggressive about making that happen. Would I love more options in the DC area? Absolutely (would love to see Amazon and its peers show up). But to the extent I was in "grass is always greener" mode when I made my initial post, I'm over it.