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Comment by abledon | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to work in this industry as a developer... coming from web/cloud what would the average interview be like? Is it more leetcode style? or system design? I would only want intermediate developer position at most for starters. What are some projects that would make someone stand out for AgTech Robotics stuff?

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I interviewed with a few companies in that space last year and they were pretty much standard interviews. Some coding tests, take home projects, the usual stuff. If it looks interesting to you, definitely give it a shot.

Getting in (assuming a typical robotics company/startup) is not that hard, just don't expect to get paid much (relative to most top tier tech compensation). Most of these "fun" fields all either significantly underpay, or are part of subsidiaries like Google X that are next to impossible to get in without exceptional pedigree.

Vision, statistics, flight | ground control, etc.

Eg: A chap I work with has tens of thousands of ANOVA grow plots for seed varieties spread across Western Australian Climatic conditions .. he and various assistants routinely fly multispectral camera drones above plot areas and calibration images.

That's an aquisition, store, normalise, process cycle for a fairly steady data stream.

> What are some projects that would make someone stand out for AgTech Robotics stuff?

I guess, in addition to the typical engineering stuff (AI, robotics, etc.) to work with these companies on startup-level, a passion for agriculture, especially historical agriculture, might be what could set you apart from competition.

Ag needs crud too

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