I came to Google after leaving academia because full time academia sucks. Now I work under the Search PA but really miss research, so I'm considering pursuing a transfer to Brain or some other research group once I hit L4 (manager says this is likely for Spring 2020). I'm not worried about being qualified (I have 3 publications in applied math, 1 in ML with another incoming) but I've heard career growth is hard in research groups. Any word on how true that is? And any advice on how to climb the ladder in research? Should I wait until L5? TC ~200k with 1YOE (hence wanting to be aggresive about career growth in the next few years)
til bain is a research group
L3 to L4 should not be issue in almost any org. Things start becoming tricky from L5 and upwards.
Right, like I said I'm gonna do L3->L4 in search so I'm not worried. It's growing L4->L5 and so on that I'm concerned about.
As long as you have a supporting manager. It is doable. A bit difficult to show impact, but if you enjoy the work, there is no harm in waiting one more cycle.