I graduated with a PhD in physics and ML in 2020. Since then I have worked in startups. This is my third one. In the first two startups I was an ML engineer. Sprints planning/reports, daily standups, looking very closely if I slip sprint deliverables even a little bit. It was a never ending churn and grind. It felt like I'm being a factory worker on a conveyor belt, delivering features and fixing bugs at a relentless pace. WLB sucked hard at both places, I had to work on weekends quite often and even do allnighters from time to time. I switched recently to another startup, now I'm working as a research engineer with ML researchers. I help them do distributed training of LLMs. Style is very different, much lower pressure. I enjoy having high level conversations and an ability to discuss the latest research papers. Also they do give me enough time to learn new things, vs in the previous two startups attitude was "just put something that is somehow working quickly in a day or two max". I'm at the beginning of my tech career, but my experience makes me stop and think a bit about what I want for myself. I enjoy ML, I enjoy coding, and most of all I enjoy building things, so that's why I was looking closer to the engineering path in AI/ML. But I don't want to feel burned out due to the neverending high intensity grind... Was I just unlucky in my first two jobs, or does the feeling of being a factory worker common in SWEs? YoE: 3 TC: $200k cash + promised bonus + stock options
You answered your own question - it is common but this is because crappy companies and managers are common. But, you can find something better.
Its: A). Industry B). Management (is it some random white guy who doesnāt know what hes doing but had a ābrilliantā idea, raised the financing and you are the raw horse power, incompetent indian lady who always was meant to be a āceoā, and your the slave drone, some nepotisticā¦.you get the ideaā¦) C). Startup vs size of company But its really the industry overall
Wow, you hit it right in the correct spot with the Indian lady CEO, lol. That was my first startup. The second one was a bunch of ex-googlers (they all worked together in Google), who worked 996 and pretty much expected the rest of us to be the same.
There is a book aimed at managers called The Phoenix Project where the entire premise is that software development/IT is like a factory, and I guess that would make the workers the machines š¤·š¼āāļø I'd say this perspective from managers is relatively common, but some managers/companies will see you as a factory worker while being less demanding.