MR BADAWY
really, i admire your keen  and very detailed observation
that expresses your fascination by english language 
 
let's have a brief preview about a / an with ordinal numbers like first , second , third , fourth ...etc
 
a/an and the   are acceptable 
examples 
the first floor     /  a second chance 
BUT " the " is more familiar due to the very few repetitions that occurs with ordinal numbers
 
HOWEVER , IN THIS VERY SPECIFIC SENTENCE 
 
    After a university education, a first job he did was to work in the theatre as an 
actor
 
GRAMMATICALLY 
A FIRST JOB HERE IS IMPOSSIBLE
 
due to one simple reason ( there is an omitted relative pronoun " that / which " after the word " job" ) so the COMPLETE sentence is
 
After a university education, the first job that  he did was to work in the theatre as an 
actor
 
i hope you are convinced now although i know it is very hard to persuade a man like you
 
best of luck my friend