Centralanstalt für Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus" (the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics) in 1901, mostly working at the Sonnblick high-altitude observatory for the next three years.
In 1904, when the Seismological Service of Austria was established, Conrad was appointed head of the new department and became responsible for the seismic monitoring on Austrian territory.
In 1910 Conrad accepted a newly created chair for "cosmic physics" at the University of Czernowitz (now Chernivtsi in Ukraine) which at this time belonged to Austria-Hungary's Bukovina region, and had native German speakers accounting for more than half of its students.
During his analyses of two earthquakes that occurred in Austria in 1923 and 1927 he discovered what is today known as the Conrad discontinuity, considered to be the border between the upper and the lower continental crust.
As a member of Austria's socialist party, Conrad faced political discrimination after the brief and decisive Austrian Civil War.
He retired in 1936, and emigrated to the United States in 1938, with the assistance of German seismologist Beno Gutenberg,[4] where he once again brought his career to bloom.