Can I go into software engineering with a specialised physics degree?

I really love physics, maths and computer science and I really would love to have my degree in physics with maths. I would however like an actual long term job as a software engineer or programmer. Is this possible / liable with a physics degree? If so what specialised physics degree would be best suited e.g. computational physics/ quantum mechanics etc.

A programming role is entirely possible without any degree for the right kind of person. There are a lot of success stories of self-taught or boot camp students landing roles. With the strong maths background you will gain in physics with maths it should be entirely possible for you to also learn coding skills and provided you have a good portfolio of work there's no reason you couldn't land work as a programmer if you have the skills and a body of work to back it up.

I really love physics, maths and computer science and I really would love to have my degree in physics with maths. I would however like an actual long term job as a software engineer or programmer. Is this possible / liable with a physics degree? If so what specialised physics degree would be best suited e.g. computational physics/ quantum mechanics etc.

I find it highly unlikely that a Maths/Physics student will have the required knowledge of databases, graphics, programming paradigms and everything else to write anything of use outside of the domain of Maths/Physics. I would even go so far as to say that a CompSci grad from a polytechnic is more employable in Software than an Oxbridge/Imperial grad of Maths/Physics. Databases account for about 90% of corporate programming and there is very little of databases taught in Physics (and I assume in Maths too).

Furthermore self-taught programmers are not of the right calibre to land jobs in Software Engineering, that's why GameDev companies never post their job applications anywhere but seek agencies to recruit at Universities instead.

You should look up Travis Neilson, he has a Youtube channel called DevTips.

Self taught and works at google.

Or Quincy Larson is the creator of FreeCodeCamp, again self-taught.

The original poster loves physics and maths, university will give him a better education on that topic than self-learning ever will.

He wants to be a coder, and while a computer science degree is a great way to achieve that (it's my plan) it can be achieved still without that degree. And I would suggest someone capable of studying physics and maths at a degree level is exactly the kind of person with the aptitude to succeed as a self-taught or bootcamp trained coder.

I am not advocating he should pursue that route, I'm certainly not doing I'm going to study computer science because I know that is what will work for me. He wanted to know if it is possible, and it absolutely is.

I would suggest that it's only applicable if the field in which he eventually works involves a lot of maths/physics for example developing Physics Engines for games. Other than that I can't think of how Maths and Physics can help you in programming. Can you suggest some areas where it can? I am all for being proved wrong.

Plus you completely disregarded two self-taught programmers I gave you as an example of success stories.

There is a reason why Maths is a highly desired A level for computer science degrees.

The science of computation is fundamentally mathematics, just base-2 mathematics.

Being given a problem and told to create an algorithm to solve it, or being given a maths or physics problem and finding an equation to solve it are critical thinking exercises.

That's because there are thousands of self-taught programmers who never get the jobs they apply for because they are underqualified. A few exceptions doesn't prove much.

Yes.

Study algorithms and data structures, basic CS concepts and pick up a few languages by making projects.

Posted from TSR Mobile