SmackAtom

Late 90s' UW Engineering grad here. First mistake, as a non-EE I thought I would enjoy this course as an elective. Second mistake, not attending lecture. Third mistake, waiting till the last minute to do the final project. Bad times. It really struck true to me. As a developer today, looking back the 'hardest' part of my CS and ECE courses there, was that they completely focused on the theory, and not the practice. Knowing how to debug my code would have maybe made the difference. At the time, I was told in the lab, by a TA that we were being left to 'sink or swim' so as to weed out the scrubs. This combined with requiring us to sign a 'no cooperation / or sharing' pledge made the experience a failing one. It took me nearly 5 years after school to rekindle the interest.

You can probably find something if you are flexible on salary. It's unlikely a solid shop will hire you for anything above junior level. I have a MS in Engineering and can relate. As a suggestion, don't jump into SE just yet. Use your still-fresh STEM skills to make a lateral jump within Academia. In the 10 years since school, I have lost many of my skills in Math and Statistics. I traded them in for applied engineering skills. In retrospect, my Math and Stats background, when combined with programming (different from Software Engineering) would have been much more interesting work. The field of big-data and analytics is growing and your PhD equips you well for it. Consider looking for a short-term opportunity (1-2years), where you can keep your math sharp. It should be something where you are proximal to good developers and expected to be learning SE practices while working as a subject matter expert (SME) to developers. In a position like this, depending on location, you might even enjoy a higher standard of living, than you would as a junior engineer. Do that for a few years, and when you're ready, you can jump from there.