Writing good libraries seems to take a reasonable amount of experience. Of course if you have been doing a significant amount of software as a student, you'll have a head start. My skills improved a great deal when I transitioned from one-off projects to research-driven projects (where the project lasts longer and requests for new capability appear as research progresses) and open source development.
What sort of math background do you have? Any experience with numerical methods for PDEs, discrete optimization, uncertainty quantification, graph analysis? If you pick up an issue of SIAM J. Scientific Computing, J. Computational Physics, or Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, can you make some sense of the articles? Academic faculty and many senior industry research positions want to see PhD, but there are plenty of places just looking for a software person that "speaks the language".
What sort of places have you tried applying?
After years of going to research conferences and getting several offers at each one (despite not "looking"), knowing colleagues with unfilled positions, etc, I'm certain the demand exists.
What sort of math background do you have? Any experience with numerical methods for PDEs, discrete optimization, uncertainty quantification, graph analysis? If you pick up an issue of SIAM J. Scientific Computing, J. Computational Physics, or Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, can you make some sense of the articles? Academic faculty and many senior industry research positions want to see PhD, but there are plenty of places just looking for a software person that "speaks the language".
What sort of places have you tried applying?
After years of going to research conferences and getting several offers at each one (despite not "looking"), knowing colleagues with unfilled positions, etc, I'm certain the demand exists.