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Comment by jstx1 | Hacker News Reader

- This really isn't representative of the ML job market because the author is such an outlier.

- The fact that it isn't representative is what makes the article an interesting read.

- The fact that they claim to have a plan for solving AGI in 20 years really detracts from their credibility.

As someone who is in a somewhat similar position as the author (looking for senior ML roles), I found this part enjoyable:

> I’m not like one of those kids that gets into all the Ivy League schools at once and gets to pick whatever they want.

Followed by "FAANG + similar" and a deluge of options. Also, I feel like their message is pretty liberal with using future projections and implying it to be the present. For instance, the author has 6 years of experience with 2 at the senior level. This is pretty far from "staff level" (at 1M+ compensation, I think this is L8) which they imply is/was an option at a FAANG company. I don't doubt that in 5 years they would be at that level, but they almost certainly did not get offered a "staff" position at a FAANG.

It's ambitious bordering on delusional. They're also doing the dirty trick of putting "2016 - 2022 Senior Research Scientist at Robotics at Google" on their resume even though they've been in the senior position only since 2020. Like, dude, you're doing great, your resume doesn't need any more artificial pumping up. Or I guess it does if you're aiming for those positions that are kind of out of reach.

I don't think that is unusual to list the latest level on a resume. I'm certainly not going to dedicate space on a resume to list time ranges for every promotion.

So if this person had been promoted to staff level in 2022, they could have changed their resume to "Staff Research Scientist, 2016-present" and that would be okay with you? Because it seems deliberately misleading to me.

It's different if the level isn't represented in the title - if they went from one band to another but the title was the same, I don't see a problem with putting down something like "Software Engineer, 2016-present" without wasting space on each promotion.

In general, yes, I think that would be okay. I think it would be a mistake to create separate sections for each level. Overall your achievements within a single company should not be organized chronologically, but by what you want to show off. This may still be mostly chronological as you take on more responsibility/leadership.

Now, I don't object to adding a line like: "promoted twice from Software Engineer 2 to Staff Software Engineer" or whatever, which I think is a good middle ground (and I would put this as the very last, least important entry for that company)

But it undeniably misleads the reader into thinking this person has held senior responsibilities since 2016, which is outright false, and may instill in the reader more confidence than is due.

As a hiring manager, I don't assume that. When there's a single title over a long range of time, I assume it's a terminal title. I look to the details for the position to see what kinds of work they've done. In the interview, I'll dig into trajectory and experience at various levels.

Then how am I to communicate to you, the hiring manager, that I held significant responsibilities for a longer period of time (eg 6 years) than an applicant who ducked out the moment their new title kicked in (eg 6 weeks)?

How much does that matter to you, anyway?

As a hiring manager I have learned that some people are trying to be deceptive that way and can thus no longer assume.

Thus I have to make sure either way and probe a lot unfortunately. Did they hold the title for the last 2 months and are jumping soon after? Will they do the same here? I want to know about and see the progression. There are situations where it is sort of irrelevant but in others it is detrimental if I have to probe.

If you are say in year 5 of your career and at senior level at just one company I want to know if you were a junior when hired out of college, were super awesome and made intermediate after one year and have been senior since year 2.5. You can show that to me right on the CV by listing it individually. If you just put the end title and that's it I will assume that you made senior this week and are trying to jump ship. This doesn't mean we can't figure it out together in the interview if it gets to that stage. But it sets a certain tone and connotation for the entire conversation. A bias to overcome.

I'll add another data point in opposition. I expect to see only the latest title for each company on a resume and my resume is organized the same way. It's practical, not deceptive.

It's clear on his LinkedIn. It's not unusual to to list the latest on a resume.

These outliers are rare but they do exist.

I knew someone at Google who was hired as L3 straight out of college (as all non-PhDs are) and got promoted once a year to L6 (Staff) so 3 years. He got promoted to L7 2 years after that.

It's a rare combination of talent and the right circumstances but it does happen.

I tried to hint at this by using quotes, I don't doubt that L6 is possible. But, please elucidate, are there L6s at Google making "low 7 figures"? From levels.fyi, there are no such reports. The average is about half and matches what I know from other companies. Those that are approaching 7 figures have at least a decade of experience. Anyway, the pay he describes is much closer to L8.

You can see some examples here https://aipaygrad.es/

The only way L6s are making "low 7 figures" is because of large movements in the share price after they were given grants.

Low 7 figures is realistic for L8s without the share price noticeably appreciating. With discretionary grants some L7s may squeak into that club. But L6? No way.

Are those SWE paybands or a Research Scientist pay band?

That might matter.

Ironically, he graduated from Brown University, an Ivy League school.

And he worked in one of the most exclusive teams, Google Brain.

Kids who graduate from Ivy League schools get a lot of job offers at once and get to pick whatever they want.

FAANG staff in 5-6 years out of school is not impossible. I know a couple. They are significant outliers in terms of focus, dedication (i.e. hours worked), and raw intelligence. If I had to guess, I'd say 1 in 30 from the population of Google-level engineers.

> They are significant outliers in terms of focus, dedication (i.e. hours worked), and raw intelligence.

As someone who has worked at FAANG for 5 years right out of school, getting to staff is less about raw intelligence and more about being lucky with working on projects that did not get canned and finding supportive managers. My friends much smarter than me have not had a good growth purely because they were unlucky with initial team assignment and PA / reorgs cancelling their projects.

Is there a large org where commitment/getting things done is more important/valued than social skills/network/luck? I.e. is there a fair model to measure an individual‘s contribution?

That is true, but one "young staff" I know was initially assigned to a dead-end project. She made it her life's mission to find something more interesting and promotable, and succeeded. But there's definitely luck involved.

On the plus side, the article accidentally produces the most useful definition I've seen of AGI. If you just define AGI as the the union and convergence of all hard problems, then you can just say "I'm working on AGI" to let people know you're doing the smartest, hardest thing, without sweating any details.

> - The fact that they claim to have a plan for solving AGI in 20 years really detracts from their credibility.

I see they're going the cold fusion route.

The problem with AGI is that it is people like this who are developing it.

There are some groups defining AGI in a way where a 20 year timeline is aggressive but not impossible. The real question is how is AGI being defined by the author.

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