What industry should I pursue as a chemical engineer?

What are some good career paths to pursue for someone with strong quantitative skills (who also loves to write)?

• Excuse the long description. I wanted to explain a bit about my background so I can get tailored advice if anyone has it: So, I've had multidisciplinary training in engineering, and am about to complete my PhD very soon if all goes well. My area of specialty is pretty specific (interdisciplinary but focused on specific problems). I feel that I am primarily an engineer and quantitative thinker and secondarily a specialist. In any case, if I limit myself to jobs in my specialty, while this would most capitalize on my background, it might really limit my options. Perhaps there are better options out there for someone with a strong quantitative background. My ideal job is intellectually challenging but doesn't involve a ton of tedious number crunching, or a huge amount of tedious "debugging" of things (a bit of it is okay, but the less the better). To be clear, I want to work hard, but in an ideal world, I'd be really quite picky about the kind of intellectual challenge I focus on - some topics just fascinate me and I can obsess over them endlessly, and others really frustrate me (I have a pretty wide spectrum of reactions to different kinds of work). If the work involves quantitative problem solving, then the more abstract and conceptual, the better: this is one reason I might like to go into academia and do more conceptual/theoretical work, and less laboratory work (or I'd seek out certain kinds of laboratory work that I find more appealing than other kinds). However, academic jobs are even more limited than industry jobs, and one can't be too picky on the topics one works on. After all - you have to get grants, etc., and usually have to stick to your specialty that you can back up with credentials. So, transitioning to new topics can be a long process. Also, doing a PhD has taken many years out of my life - some of the best years. I'm getting a late start, so while I never cared much about making a ton of money, now I actually feel like I really need to make a lot of money: I feel like this would be the only way I can have freedom to pursue topics and work I'm passionate about in the long-term. This is one reason I've thought very seriously about trying to work on a startup (and tried a few times while studying), and I'm okay with the risks and with not making much money at first, because I'd keep at it until eventually, years down the line, I would hopefully hit one successful exit (the long-term prospect of this might be enough for me if I'm making an okay living in the meantime). Another thing about me is that I love to write (can you tell??). I absolutely love it and can crank out pages with great ease in a short time. I've gotten more compliments about being articulate in my writing (don't take this description as an example) than I have about any of my quantitative skills. I like to write on non-fiction topics. They can be technical, philosophical, political, etc. Usually, I write about cerebral topics, and usually I'm attracted to "persuasive writing", i.e. trying to challenge the status quo and the way a group of people (or people in general) tend to think about particular topics. I particularly rock at formulating an argument (not interested in the legal profession though - nor in doing any more school). This is why one day in the future, I'd love to try to write and publish books. I would enjoy this probably more than any other work, but I'm in no hurry to do it because I know it will be quite some time before anyone will want to read my books or any publishers will take me on. So, this is something I hope to do in the future. Additionally, most non-fiction writers have a day-job anyway. So, now that I've given a detailed description of the kind of work I'd enjoy and some of my hopes/constraints, what kinds of jobs/ career paths can you think of that might not be obvious to me? Better yet, even if you think they might be obvious, still share your opinion. Are there some engineering jobs/careers I might not have thought of? Anything else "quantsy" that you might recommend (don't know much about quantitative finance and I can't tell if it'd be intellectually stimulating in the way I'd hope)? Any other thoughts come to mind?

• Answer:

  Two ideas off the top of my head: - !  We certainly use a lot of quantitative methods and it is helpful to have a love for writing and use the product.  See - A sell-side quantitative research group within finance.  There are teams at the major banks that do not trade directly but investigate quantitative trading ideas and write them up for clients.  This is a pretty interesting job that combines quantitative work with writing.