Does Google SWE -> ML Scientist REALLY happen?
At Amazon, I've seen a few people transition from SDE to Applied Scientist. The latter is Amazon's research/science role. Of course, the SDEs were all working on ML-heavy teams with a lot of science in their day to day work. Does that sort of thing happen at Google? What are the research positions at Google? Do you know of any cases where people have transitioned from software engineering to science? I really don't have a sense of the science structure at Google.
Why would your want to do that though? It's extremely hard to get a promo on that track.
I know of one person who did this kind of a transfer in Google. But it depends on your background as well. Even though that guy started as a Software Engineer, he had strong background in CV/ML with very good publications in top tier conferences.
Yep, have seen this happen first hand. Not sure I can offer any advice but it definitely happens. There's some truth to the claim that, in a research-focused team, there's not a big difference between SWEs and RSs though.