I joined a seed stage startup as an ML engineer in the Bay Area almost half a year ago. The work itself is quite interesting, there is a lot to learn and it seems like my manager is taking mentorship very seriously, so we often have conversations on how to improve both hard and soft skills. However, WLB is very poor. Everyone is basically always working, and I am not exaggerating. PRs are constantly being pushed at weird hours (weekends, nights and weekend nights as well). When discussing weekend plans, it's always about what things my colleagues are going to work on during the weekend. When I started working weekends and doing allnighters, I feel I rose significantly in their eyes. I don't mind working like crazy occasionally, when there is a real need, but I do mind if it's the norm. I had to take a vacation recently to decompress, as I've literally started having nosebleeds while working. And they were still messaging me, expecting a response, I had to negotiate my load so that I could get some break. Our CTO seems to be quite proud, that his norm is 70 hours a week. He says it's fun for him, and he can easily sustain it. The founding team is all Chinese immigrants. They are very smart, all coming from FAANG companies and top schools. Currently, I'm the only non-Chinese person in a team of 10 people. When I'm not present, they speak Chinese among themselves. Also, the word of a boss is being treated as if it's coming from a God. If a boss directly asks to do something, they will work until it's done almost without a break, even if the feature is not critical. I've heard about the 996 work culture in China, so I was a little bit concerned when accepting the offer. But the position itself was exactly what I wanted. I did work in a startup before. It was hard work, but it was sustainable for me. Actually, between seed and Series C, my WLB was quite normal. Craziness started after series C, as it was about scaling the product. Or I thought it was craziness, until I started working at my current company, lol. I've already started thinking about changing my job even in this market. My health is more important to me. Is such a crazy work ethic actually common in Chinese led companies though or am I just unlucky? TC: $250k cash + 0.8% equity.
0.8 equity is a lot given u are not that early employee
I was number 3 when I was hired.
That’s a fairly decent package for a seed stage
What is ml engineer like, any recommendation for backend eng that want to transition to ml eng?
I would not recommend it. There are way too many ML engineers just writing SQL queries and shitty Python code. Very few actually do what you’d consider interesting. So that’s just like backend, except you will do all this work to transition.
They don't do model tuning? Use neural network or optimize convergence rate?
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in US, never join any place that has a homogeneous team makeup.
I guess, I learned this lesson the hard way, lol
You can join a homogeneous team and have a great time if you are part of the homogeneity