From 1936 to 1939 he practiced law as an advocate, and on account of his prodigious linguistic skills was the official court's translator for Spanish, Italian, German, French, and English.
[1] Meanwhile, he studied Sanskrit with Professor Helena Willman-Grabowska in the Jagiellonian University's seminar for Sanskritology and Indian Philology, beginning in 1928 and graduating with an M.Ph.
[1] The Nazi occupation of Western Poland led the Jewish Sternbach to flee to Lwów in the east of the country, where he joined the University of Jan Kazimierz Oriental Institute as a lecturer in ancient Indian culture, under Professor Stefan Stasiak.
The Russian occupation of Eastern Poland led to the Soviet authorities cancelling Sternbach's position, and in 1941 he fled, along with his parents and his research notes, travelling through Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan, to Karachi and thence to Bombay.
In 1947, he began working for the United Nations, beginning in its Department of Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories, and retiring from a position as its Deputy Director of Research in 1969.