Philosophers in Industry updates!

This is just a quick note that I made significant updates to the Philosophers in Industry directory, adding over 20 entries yesterday thanks to a helpful reader. Given how historically awful this year's academic job market is, my hope that the directory will help philosophers in need of work network outside of academia, as well as better appreciate the kinds of possibilities open to philosophers in industry. Looking at the updates, a few things really pop out at me.

First, 'ontologist' jobs seem to be a big growth area. I don't know much about the line of work, but it appears to involve logic and formal semantics--the general aim being to improve how software applications (including AI and web search engines) reason and categorize things. There is a pretty large number of ontologists listed on the directory, both at big corporations (Amazon, Dell) and smaller start-ups. Second, although I recall seeing a few job ads from them on PhilJobs over the years, I did not realize until now how big of an employer of philosophers Cycorp appears to be.

In brief, people with philosophy degrees can get very good jobs in industry, especially (but not only) if they are willing to learn how to code and network well. Over the years, many readers at the Cocoon and elsewhere have despaired over a philosophy PhD only preparing them for poorly paying, 'entry-level' jobs. I hope the Directory helps despairing readers see that philosophical training can be leveraged into good careers outside of the academy, and that it serves as a helpful resource for networking, finding good jobs, and learning what it takes to transition into them!

Comments

[Mike]

Thanks for maintaining and updating this list!