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Comment by ActorNightly | Hacker News Reader

The Full stack developer and ML engineer seem like full positions, considering he listed internships specifically in his prior experience as explicit internships.

Also he has a background in bio, and managed to land a full stack and ML engineer positions, implying he is self taught, and therefore should be already fairly intelligent...but he decided to go get his MS in CS, without even doing any research project and just opting for the GTA instead of GRA route.

None of us can really know for sure, Im just saying it smells a little fishy. If his resume came across my desk, Id have some specific questions about his experience. If you are that smart to have a background in bio, and land the jobs that he did, your career would look very different.

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> but he decided to go get his MS in CS, without even doing any research project and just opting for the GTA instead of GRA route.

This is pettiness taken to the max.

Most research people do in grad school will not have applicable use to employers. And for an MS, people will simply learn more by going the coursework route. Going the research route is good only for PhD admissions.

And finally, many universities in the US do not even offer a research route for the CS MS. They tell you to apply straight for a PhD.

If you're going to ask tough questions, at least know your domain!

> If you are that smart to have a background in bio, and land the jobs that he did, your career would look very different.

Is that really so impressive? Bio people do a lot of coding, and good dev practices can be learned on the job. ML is probably also something he played with during his studies. Full stack + some ML experience is probably enough for a junior ML engineer.

Sure but then having those jobs for 3 months at a time still looks shady

During his studies and very early career? That's completely normal and I don't understand why more people don't do it.

Studies don't give you any idea of what a job is actually like. They also don't give you a reliable indication that you'll like a field. Choosing bio out of high school, then moving to CS for any reason, then trying a few jobs using these skills is a normal and healthy way of searching for a job he really likes.

I don't have an MSc (just something similar) but I have no idea what GTA and GRA means in this context. Also none of my CS BSc+MSc friends ever mentioned a research project (or do you mean the thesis?) Also I haven't seen where the person in the original post was studying, but this might be kinda different per country?

I'm assuming GTA = graduate teaching assistant, GRA = graduate research assistant, i.e. project track vs research track Masters degree.

The ML engineer job was a summer in the middle of his degree. The identified internships were over 5 years ago in a different field.

A CS degree opens doors. And you don't know what he planned when he started his degree.

Asking about someone's experience when interviewing them is reasonable. Calling short jobs during university fishy isn't.

> he decided to go get his MS in CS, without even doing any research project and just opting for the GTA instead of GRA route.

Could you elaborate more on this? I'm assuming this is a detail of the US education system of which I don't know anything :)

I'm assuming GTA = graduate teaching assistant, GRA = graduate research assistant, i.e. project track vs research track Masters degree.

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