I've been thinking about joining Groq as a HW engineer - I wanted to talk to someone (SW or HW) about Groq's culture and work. It almost seems too good to be true. AI acceleration is a well defined problem and Groq seems to have a solid solution for it. They have plans for the future and they seem to have a solid culture. I wanted to know about any red flags I might be missing before I join. If any current or former Groq employees have any thoughts I'd be happy to DM you. Thank you! Current TC: 200k
Are you in silicon Meta?
Yes
Hey @OP , sorry to go off topic . But is Meta silicon worth applying now considering recent layoffs ? Particularly in AR/VR teams .
I'd still say it's worth applying. Pros: - Pay and Benefits (50% 401k, public transit passes, food, health/mental/vision insurance are great, 4/5 month parental leave, etc) are still top notch - Really interesting work - the problems are actually ones that haven't been solved yet. It's a more integrated and complex system than anything I can think of. - while a lot of great people left there's still some great engineers there. - overall friendly and respectful people Cons: - Leadership at RL level seems bad and the silicon team level isn't great either in my opinion. First level managers are pretty good overall. - PSC/Performance - there's stack ranking with a minimum 15% underperform quota. It's not instant pip but not ideal. Impacc culture is okay for web apps but it is killing the HW programs here. It creates a bad culture filled with resentment and apathy imo. - CWs leadership thinks HW can pivot and that a resource is a resource so we have to deal with idiots because they don't hire enough but aren't willing to move deadlines. (I've met designer CWs that didn't know the difference between combo and sequential logic, didn't understand how flops work, etc...) You'll have to interact/mentor/lead then and inevitably by the time they are getting close to being competent the project will end and you'll get a new batch the next project rather than keeping the same ones. -
@op isnt the chips being developed by Qualcomm? Or is it just for smart glasses?
People are great and no politics at least at lower level. The execs dwindle a little here and there. Lots of people left last year and many got laid off in hw.
If people are leaving and groq is doing layoffs for a startup at 1b valuation. That is not a good place to join, dead ship. Might as well gamble with tenstorrent.
I would avoid Meta Infra Silicon team. Too much politics and favouritism and f***ed up WLB. I am interviewing and will be moving out soon.
Dylan Patel: "The groq chip makes no sense for scaled deployments. TCO so bad. But sure using hundreds of chips to inference LLAMA is fun" https://twitter.com/dylan522p/status/1719633791176634385
You should join, best time in the history for us so far. Groq has been a great place to work, they laid off people like everyone else last year and a bunch of people left as a result of that, but have recovered and are going strong. TCO is great despite some of the FUD - the team figured out some core optimizations that changed the game this year. Best perf. in the world, I don't think Graphics cards can keep up - even though the Graphics vendors are creating marketing material to confuse the market.
Copium, whats the revenue in 2023?
lol don’t ask tough questions
Op, how did you join? How is it there?
Hi! Sorry for the late response. I really like it. It's my favorite place I've been so far (haven't been at a ~startup before though) Did you have any questions? I'd be happy to talk with you in DMs.
What is your role? And how did TC scale? Any chatter about IPO/acquisition? I am sure you might have had multiple offers/would have gotten them if not, what made you pick groq particularly other than work/area of skill/tech.
I had interview with Groq a few months ago. I was not impressed with the team including the CEO. I saw no value proposition that Nvidia cannot match. The best scenario for them is a low value acquisition. They also ghosted me after multiple interviews.
Joined Groq I like it quite a bit. I'd say the value proposition is better performance for equivalent/lower cost for inference. Anything specific about the team or CEO that you had issue with?
Congratulations and best wishes. Now that you are in, just focus on doing your best while having fun.
Why leaving meta? Are you in RL or infra?
RL. The culture at meta has taken a nose dive the past two years. The leadership(specifically within RL) has gotten worse since I've joined and there's not good collaboration between HW and SW. The work is still really interesting but I'm fed up of babysitting CWs, my coworkers leaving(and not backfilling for them) and stretching layoffs for 6+ months. There's still some solid people there and they are solving some neat problems. I like and support the vision. I'm guessing a lot of the others might be staying because golden handcuffs but that doesn't apply to me.
How’s infra’s culture? Sounds like they have a good roadmap