After graduating from the University of Cambridge, Dye worked for a short period as Junior Associate at Mitchell Madison Group from October 2000 until March 2001, before going back to the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, the University of Cambridge as a postdoctoral research associate also for a very short stint in 2001. He then joined the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada as Visiting fellow from late 2001 until 2003, working at the neutron spectroscopy facility at the AECL Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, Canada. He then moved to the Department of Materials, Imperial College London as lecturer, and became a professor in 2015.
David Dye teaches metallurgy, and his research focuses primarily on the micromechanics, design, and fatigue processes of titanium and nickel/cobalt superalloys, with side interests in zirconium, twinning-induced plasticity steels, and superelastic NiTi-based alloys. Most of his work is done in collaboration with Rolls-Royce and other industries, including nuclear and aerospace.
Dye is an experimentalist. His work involves using Electron backscatter diffraction and traditional lab-based characterisation methods, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), neutron and X-rays synchrotron at facilities like ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, Diamond Light Source, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, and in situ microbeam Laue synchrotron diffraction.