Hey all, OP here (author of the blog post, someone else submitted it ).
I wrote this a few days ago mostly out of frustration and honestly did not expect it to go anywhere. It is pretty surreal to wake up and see it on HN with so much discussion.
Thank you for reading and for all the comments, messages, and thoughtful critiques.
I am currently looking for roles that sit at the intersection of ML, product, and research. I like open ended work where you figure out what to build as much as how to build it. I am a builder, and I also enjoy PM type work and being close to users and the product. If you are working on something in that space and think I might be a fit, I would love to chat.
Also, thank you to Daniel Han for sending me the link and bringing this to my attention.
In any case, thanks again for reading and for the conversation.
As for your job search, I would recommend that you look way beyond your home country if you haven't started doing that already. There are markets where there are jobs and while finding work overseas is not easy, there are markets where ML/product/research roles are still open.
Thank you for writing this post. Your writing is insightful and thought-provoking. I would love to follow your blog to read your future posts as well, but I could not find an RSS feed or an email newsletter option. Is there any chance that you would add RSS to your blog in the future?
Free advice from the Internet- That role you're describing is pretty rare for new grads. You'd normally look for someone with experience and a track record before trusting them with open ended work or product management roles.
Start by being a "junior" builder in a team, then as you prove yourself you'll be given broader scope, this can take a while. There are teams building things that need strong builders. The smaller the company the more likely you'll be able to grow faster if you perform well.
Your free advice is well-taken and apropos in 2015 and before. The major point of the essay is that junior builders--e.g., people doing tasks that are standardized and understood well enough to automate--no longer get hired. Either we get a new way to identify the ability to complete open-ended work, or the tech sector suffers a succession failure (or everybody gets replaced by robots before the current generation of senior experts retires).
Fascinating article, it really got me thinking if I'm “out of distribution” enough. Also wild that this could have been a scifi essay just three years ago.
Great post. I think your situation would be a bit more different if you were in San Francisco in the US instead of anywhere in the UK where at least with your AI/ML background, there are lots of related roles there.
However the problem is for every role, you will be faced this 10,000+ other applicants, so you need to keep that in mind.
So instead of that your best bet is to build an AI startup in the US [0]. You have built AI systems for others, surely you can do it for yourself?
I wrote this a few days ago mostly out of frustration and honestly did not expect it to go anywhere. It is pretty surreal to wake up and see it on HN with so much discussion.
Thank you for reading and for all the comments, messages, and thoughtful critiques.
I am currently looking for roles that sit at the intersection of ML, product, and research. I like open ended work where you figure out what to build as much as how to build it. I am a builder, and I also enjoy PM type work and being close to users and the product. If you are working on something in that space and think I might be a fit, I would love to chat.
Also, thank you to Daniel Han for sending me the link and bringing this to my attention.
In any case, thanks again for reading and for the conversation.