Computer Vision job at NVIDIA or A9.com
I need to make the final decision soon. Hope people can help me to choose. The team in NVIDIA is autonomous vehicle team; and the team in A9.com is visual search team. Both jobs are computer vision related. A9’s package is slightly better, but the NVIDIA’s self driving car project is so popular. I worked one year as software engineer after getting my PhD in computer science and live in the Bay Area. Below are some summaries. Reasons to choose NVIDIA: - Slightly more experienced team - Silicon Valley is the headquarter. Potential to know different GPU related projects. - Practice more GPU programmings and learn some robotics and autonomous system. - Better market myself with autonomous vehicles experience - Easier commute Reasons to choose A9.com: - Better compensation - High ratio of top school graduates as teammates - Have time to read academic papers and allowed to attend academic conferences. Have opportunities to dive deep in theories and algorithms - Visual search has potential to become popular when Augmented Reality glasses take off in a few years - Better work life balance
What can you tell about the interviews ? Was the PhD a requirement for the position ?
The interviews went well for both. Both teams have friendly and talented people. PhD is highly recommended for both teams, because most team members and both hiring managers have PhD degree. I will update the post with more details.
If you wouldnt mind, can you unpack the rounds?
they're drastically different kinds of work
In terms of the fields of application, yes, they are different. But in terms of technologies, both works are about writing GPU code to process image data and training neural networks models.
yeah man but one is auto industry the other is a different animal and image processing for SDCs is fairly different from image search. where you want your career to go?
What are you taking about Nvidia all the way. Period. The complexity of problem of App search is far lower than realtime autonomous industries
I don’t know how big or complex task will be assigned to me though. But I think I need to work harder in NVIDIA because if its culture.
You’re gonna be in the “right place at the right time” with NVIDIA. Having AV from NV on your resume is a huge plus for any future career move in any AI/ML/DL space
Thank you for your encouragement!
Definitely nvidia. Much harder and more interesting problems to solve. You'll always be able to hop to Amazon image search, especially after being with nvidia.
You sure about "better WLB" at Amazon? I have heard only the opposite.
I work at Amazon and intact with the A9 VS team. I'd say at A9 you'll find a relatively well defined problem and need to get creative about the solutions. You'll also have tons of real world data and real world metrics to use as a benchmark. If you're looking for something less structured, working on AVs is probably more suitable. In that domain we don't even know all the questions yet. Personally, I'd take the money. Because having either NVDIA or Amazon on your resume will get you similar value.
Can I dm you to ask questions on the VS team?
I had worked on couple of computer vision related projects in my previous companies, and I’d say if you like to challenge urself(having a PhD means u do like :)) then self driving has that for you. At nvidia, you can take more challenging projects if you talk to right people.
So I've actually worked at both companies - only for an internship at NVIDIA, but 4+ years at Amazon. I don't hate Amazon, it can also be a great place to work, but I think NVIDIA is a much better place to work. It's been a while, though.
I am currently at Nvidia AV, and have offer from Amazon. Could you please share your NV offer.
I don’t know whether I can share you my package details since I signed NDA. But what I can tell you is that A9 pays me at least 25K per year more than NVIDIA for the first four years. Since my career just started, I value future career more than the compensation.
How do you like NVIDIA AV? I would be very interested in hearing your opinion on these two jobs.