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Comment by AznHisoka | Hacker News Reader

"The university is looking to hire several tenure-track faculty members in computing this year, he said, but competition for top candidates is fierce. I know of major departments that interviewed 40 candidates, and I don’t think they hired anybody."

That doesn't sound like fierce competition if they were able to interview 40 candidates... Did they give them all high-paying offers and they all rejected?

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One of the problems is that a candidate might sit on an offer for a long time. The best candidates want to wait until the interview season is over to evaluate all their offers. On the other hand, some schools give one week deadlines on offers but any good candidate will turn those down.

It is hard on both sides. The entire process was about 6 months when I went through it, and I had offers expiring before I even finished all the onsites.

Disclaimer: I’m a CS prof at a R1 university in my first year.

I'm not CS faculty, but this is similar to the situation in economics. Interview 40. Of those, 20 may end up being acceptable. The eight best of those 20 get offers at better places. Four others take nonacademic jobs. You're left fighting over a pool of eight candidates with a lot more than eight other schools. It was really tough after the recession, when the Fed was hiring a ginormous number of new PhD's.

this is one of the pathologies in academic institutions: they need teachers, but they evaluate researchers. the people who make the cut for researcher also have a lot of other options, and the institution ends up with an undersupply of teachers.

Tenure track implies research.

It does, but it's an interesting question why it always does. Knowing universities that lost their best lecturers because they insisted on a high-impact research record to consider giving them a permanent position, more flexibility in that regards looks like it'd be a good idea.

>it's an interesting question why it always does.

Not really. It’s a good question to ask but the answer is rather simple: R1 institutions stay afloat because of research grants; they need researchers to secure that grant $$.

And it's surely helping the grant-getting that their researchers have to spend time teaching classes they don't really want to teach. Teaching-focused people, even if you make them full professors, are still comparatively cheap (since they don't need big teams or labs), and I don't think it's obvious that it doesn't make sense, especially if you consider decrease in teaching quality and other factors. And this also happens at institutions that aren't in dire need of cash. (To be clear, I'm not suggesting to do this for all teaching, but if you get good teachers as e.g. postdocs to try and keep them)

>Teaching-focused people, even if you make them full professors, are still comparatively cheap

This is where liberal art universities strive. While their endowments and grants may be lower, their retention and graduation rates may be higher (unsourced opinion). But Unfortunately we’re living in a time where we need both type of institutions and having that choice is good. While i still don’t agree with the rising costs of education, research driven programs are good for future researchers and STEM. Liberal art programs are great for the humanities.

tenure is likely a good thing for people doing research. why is tenure necessary for people specialized in teaching?

Institution that is looking for tenure track person is not looking for someone specialized in teaching. People who specialized in teaching are treated rather as lower status by universities, so you don't want to be one anyway, tenure or not. Generaly speaking, even people who might like teaching and could be good don't want to specialize in it often, prefering research positions or out of university work.

Some universities hire non-tenure track instructors, with no research requirements, sometimes called "Lecturers".

Of course, they are compensated horribly, so nobody wants to do that unless they have no other choice, and once you do that, good luck ever getting a tenure-track position.

The whole academic job market is pretty dysfunctional. It's more interesting to look at the flawed ways universities have of measuring research contributions, but sometimes it just comes down to money. Universities are trying to save money by paying as many people as possible peanuts, while paying "stars" hugely.

> Of course, they are compensated horribly

Non-tenure track academic teaching positions that pay "horribly"... I can already imagine the kind of talent they attract.

>Non-tenure track academic teaching positions that pay "horribly"... I can already imagine the kind of talent they attract.

Honestly, as a former CC student, non-TT professors/lectures at the junior level were some amazing teachers. While they may only have a masters in their field, most of them are taking these jobs out of enjoyment as secondary income or after retirement.

Examples: One psych prof is a clinical child psychologist, teaches PT, highest evals in the dept.

Other psych prof, retired psychologist, head of CHARGE research, drove 45 minutes to teach PT

Social work prof, 20+ year professional, teaches PT, was a complete savior to her students.

Eng prof, trans, former Navy, journalist, taught PT.

Chem prof, retired, works at a local grocery store stocking fruit PT, lectures PT

Ironically, it is often the non-tenure track positions that pay horribly that attract the best natural teachers, at least initially. These are the people who are doing it for the love of teaching their subject rather than the pay or research opportunities. However, in my experience, this only lasts for a few years, and those passionate people become jaded about their situation and leave the profession.

Many schools rely on adjuncts and lecturers to teach. They get paid very little, have no job security, no benefits, etc. But because the academic career path is so completely broken, lots of of very smart, talented instructors take on these jobs to make ends meet while they look for something else that allows them to pursue their passions with their extensive educations.

Don't look down on these people. They're smart, they work hard, and they deserve better.

> lots of of very smart, talented instructors take on these jobs to make ends meet while they look for something else that allows them to pursue their passions with their extensive educations.

My point is that you can't attract and retain top talent by offering low pay and no job security.

You are confirming said point by showing any person of talent taking this job is only for a short, temporary period while looking for something else.

Academic career paths are completely broken, which is why universities can and do get away with it. The problem is not that these instructors aren't "people of talent."

This article is mainly concerned with the humanities, but it covers well the issues at stake: https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Great-Shame-of-Our/239...

Just a warning for those who don't know, but this only applies to lecturers in certain countries. In the UK, a lecturer can do teaching, research and be a permanent, tenure-track position.

Yes, although I think we might be better off with some dedicated teaching positions. Especially for for some first and second year undergraduate courses where the material is pretty standardised.

Your entire idea is basically a community college.

Professors are there to teach. You get two years done and most, if not all, of your gen eds.

And some universities hire tenure-track faculty whose primary responsibility is teaching.

See "Teaching Professor" on this list: https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Lists/list.html?_ga=2...

It would be good if this were more common...

Northeastern University started doing this a few years ago as well. It definitely helps.

It's not pathological. Most universities have flirted with hiring non phds to teach. It can work, but there's a reason they prefer traditional candidates: thebfaikure rate is way lower.

the competition is often between people with phds. i am not 100% sure that a university teacher needs to have a phd, but it seems that even keeping that requirement, the present system is pathological. most people with phds do not make the cut for researcher, which leads to the university being short on teachers.

I went to a relatively large public school with a big endowment. The "just teachers" were called Adjunct Professors and they really had a shit deal. They basically didn't make any more money teaching at my school than they would teaching at a community college and I don't even think they were considered full-time with benefits. Meanwhile, my research PI was a tenured professor who made a very decent living (salaries of teachers at the school were publicly available) but almost all of his salary was paid out by research grants, not the school.

Really among most of the department, I was surprised how much of an afterthought teaching seemed to be. They were by no means bad teachers, and I guess when you've been teaching the same class for many years it becomes pretty effortless, but there really is no good incentive for them to sign up and teach a bunch of extra classes when research is what they are interested in and pays for their salary (along with the salaries of all of their lab members).

This article is so poor I dont know where to start.

The Computer Science Stampede

>> "While the number of undergraduates majoring in computer science at certain American universities more than doubled from 2013 to 2017, the number of Ph.D. candidates — the potential pool of future professors — remained relatively flat."

They seem to ignore the three decades of legacy PhD graduates who gave up looking for jobs in academia because of so few spots opening up. The article makes it seem almost like all legacy graduate supply poof disappears!

>> “I had a faculty member who came in with an offer from a bank, and they were told that, with their expertise, the starting salary would be $1 million to $4 million,” said Greg Morrisett, dean of computing and information science at Cornell University. “There’s no way a university, no matter how well off, could compete with that.”

Nice anecdote, but the number of graduates in that spot is tiny. Rarely do PhDs get that type of salary on Wall St, and often it does not last. No, they cant compete with the back on this one candidate but luckily there are a thousand other candidates, and tens of thousands of candidates once you consider the pool of grads having graduated over the last generation.

No, but most recent PhDs can get a job at a FAANG company, where their starting salary will be much higher than a faculty salary (and that's before bonus, stock grant/options/etc). Even with the cost of living in the Bay Area, they'll be able to pay off student loans faster and will finally have time to enjoy life.

How many CS PhDs are getting $1m-$4m starting salaries? If any, are they just from Stanford/Berkeley/MIT/CMU or are all the PhDs across all US universities getting these salaries? What about the tens of thousands of CS/Physics/Math PhDs who have graduated over the past two decades, are they also getting these salaries? I find it hard to imagine that a highly reputable school like Cornell would have a difficult time finding faculty. Most my PhD friends gave up looking for tenure track positions and begrudgingly accepted finance/FAANG jobs distraught from the drought in academia.

It is poor reporting to chose the most extreme possible anecdote (one person $1m-$4m salary) and then use that as an example of what is going on. The real story is...universities messed up badly structuring decent pathways for teaching positions and are trying to blame a hot market. There is also the ongoing story of poor measurement schemes (measure how good a teacher is by how good their research is) and the story of uncertainty (let highly accomplished academics rot in limbo-hell for a decade and use a tenure carrot to control them.)

BTW, the quote was from Cornell University's dean. I did my CS undergrad from Cornell. 90% of CS lectures were in a large hall where ~60% of the seats were empty, and this was in an upyear (1998-2001.) There was no shortage of space in the lecture halls. The teaching was mostly done by MS and PhD students, of which there were plenty -- the supply of recitation sections is quite elastic since there is no long-term commitment on either side.

They aren't going to get $1M at FAANG on hire, but they'll easily get $250-350k, which is already more than 4 times what university would pay them.

Fairly recent PhD graduate here (graduated last year). My observations are that the skills required to do a PhD are orthogonal to the skills required to pass FAANG interviews and, more importantly, to being a good software engineer.

I don't dispute you can make a higher salary than a faculty member, even without working at a FAANG, but having a PhD won't automatically make you eligible to get such a job.

Interesting observation. I was under the impression that getting hired into research groups at a FAANG was a different process than getting hired as a SWE, and that you could bypass some of the whiteboard "find all sub matrices with matching determinants in an NxM matrix of arbitrary size" style questions.

Those jobs, the SWE jobs, there's really no degree that will allow you to skip that gauntlet. But I think there might be a different hiring process for PhDs or faculty leaving academia to work in research labs.

I don't really know, though, just something I heard/read somewhere.

Research groups at FAANG are pretty competitive too.

Competitive, yes, certainly. But is it competitive in the same way?

I’m other words, do “cracking the coding interview” style questions play as big a role?

EDIT: I figured, why not do a quick web search. I found this link:

http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2014/01/getting-job-at-google...

Just one POV, but it does confirm that PhD graduates do have to go through the same kind of coding exercises (at google) as anyone else. It is worth noting that this is the case if you're applying for SWE positions, where a PhD might not really confer that much of an advantage. Again, I'm not sure if this would be the case if you were, say, getting hired as an AI researcher for a lab.

So, this link sheds some light, thought I still don't know about research positions specifically.

I do know someone who ended up at IBM Research from my lab. He was collaborating with them for his research before he graduated so I'm not sure if he even had to interview after finishing.

According to Glassdoor, Facebook research candidates are given the typical interview questions as part of the process: https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Facebook-Research-Scient...

Same at Google: https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Google-Research-Scientis...

For what it's worth, though I've never particularly sought out a research position in industry, I haven't really come across too many listings which leads me to believe the positions are few and far in between.

There is some difference in research scientist hiring, both in the method & the criteria. But as I said, these roles are very competitive, and most PhD holders in FAANG companies will be in SWE roles.

Often a research university will interview many candidates, give offers to/recruit many candidates, and yet find that for each individual it recruited, there was a competing university which worked better for that candidate.

Usually (from what I have seen) candidates on the academic job market don't end up in industry (at least not immediately) - they are in the job market because they are passionate about academia.

My experience is not from the US, but sometimes companies/universities/etc self-sabotage themselves in weird ways.

I teach in http://www.sena.edu.co/ (the biggest trainer in Colombia, run by the gov) because for a advance class about databases them not have anyone and one of the faculty ask me the favor to cover for it (I was there as part of a program for startups).

It work well, and I do it because the time commit was not bas and the extra money help. So I was ready to continue to teach about mobile development. I was like the only one that apply for it.

I was not selected, because I don't have certain diplomas related to how operate the (very) arcane Sena "education platform" and other side stuff that demand ONE YEAR of extra courses for me.

In the end, only the people that accept that get it the job, but how many with actual skills on the field?

Competition must be fierce... at the level they want to pay.

I would wager the pay would be at or near minimum wage levels. I had this exact predicament. A decade ago, it was an $8/hour offer or do an internship/co-op and make triple. Passion for your area of study is great, but going to a home with minimal to no luxuries gets old pretty quickly as years go by.

95K a year for a starting professorship... or 3.5X that in total comp in industry. Not a terribly difficult choice!

Starting professors make less at my alma mater...a lot less.

Since it's a public school you can find out how much each one makes - https://www.newsobserver.com/news/databases/public-salaries/

Dr. Falk at Chapel Hill pulling that phat $800K base salary.

Meanwhile, the random dude sitting next to me is making more than every single person that works at Asheville.

I went to a highly ranked liberal arts college and in 4 years, I didn't have a single instructor that wasn't a PhD. I don't know what the salaries were like then, but even freshly minted PhDs can be over 30, meaning that from ages 22-30, they were making graduate/doctoral student stipend money at best.

$95k at age 32-35 honestly doesn't seem like a lot if your savings at that age doesn't even hit 5 figures.

Who would have thought salary was important

If you're hiring CS faculty, you're also directly competing with research organizations at large tech companies.

I don't understand how you can infer from the number of candidates they interviewed how fierce the competition is. Don't you also need to know the number of positions available at other institutions that those candidates are also considering in order to estimate competition fierceness?

That and the number of candidates they chose not to interview

High-paying offer in academia? Not likely.

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