Mighty Koala asked
answered 4d ago
Hi Philip,
I work as a senior ML engineer at a MAG7 company. My career is going well in absolute terms. Past me would kill to be where I'm at now, I find genuine interest in the work I'm doing, and I also happen to enjoy working with my teammates.
However, I am not immune to the AI hype that's surrounded internet discourse for the past few years. Everywhere I turn, I see someone publishing cool research at a frontier lab, signing an offer at a frontier lab with comp packages that make my eyes pop out my skull, or telling me about how important it is to get on the "rocketship" ✨right now✨ regardless of the seat or how hard you'd have to work.
Because of this, I experience FOMO and sometimes the fear of falling into the "permanent underclass". I know it's silly -- I work on AI (albeit not at the frontier) and with AI, and I enjoy learning bits and pieces of this area and think that's enough to keep me going. I'm also not even sure if I could thrive in a frontier lab while maintaining the other things in my life I care about.
However, thoughts of frontier lab FOMO are loud enough in my inner monologue that they distract me from appreciating what I have now and focusing on my current career path. There is only so much grass I can touch and twitter I can turn off before wondering "what if". I find myself internally conflicted between curiosity for working there (and potentially destroying my WLB if I were to go) versus focusing on the path I'm on today (which really isn't such a bad career path). What would you suggest?
Many thanks!
Philip's answer
The fact that you're already working in ML is a huge plus to not being outmoded by the rapid development of AI worldwide. In fact, one would argue that if Jevons Paradox does turn out to be the case in our industry, people like you will become even more valuable as AI adoption throughout all sorts of industries requires more and more people who actually know what they're doing.
That said, I completely hear you on the FOMO. In 2004, when Google opened its first office in Seattle, one of my skip-level reports went over there. He was very nice to work with, but he was an average developer, not exceptional. He ended up doing much better financially than I did, even though I was several levels above him and had a lot more scope for growth in my future. It can be hard to watch this sort of thing go on if we focus on it too much.
Here are a few different thoughts along different axes:
There's a question of intrinsic reward. Annie Dillard was famous for saying, "How we spend our days is, in the end, how we spend our lives." There's a strong argument for optimizing for the substance of your days themselves being very enjoyable. It sounds to me like your current role and job are very enjoyable to you. This, of course, doesn't mean you couldn't have the same level of enjoyment at a frontier lab. All I mean to say is to encourage properly valuing the situation you're already in (which you obviously do, given what you've said).
There's a sense in which, if our eyes rove the land far enough, we will always find reasons for FOMO. There will always be someone who is less deserving than you, someone who has it better than you, who makes more money than you, who looks better than you, who is younger than you, or who is smarter than you. It's easy for me to say this, but if I'm honest, I've had a very hard time in my life grappling with this, given that I've been an overachiever most of my life. The wisdom is in understanding that if our happiness depends on those seeming inequities not existing, then we shall resign ourselves to be unhappy forever.
A big part of the decision about whether to go to a frontier lab also probably has to do with your personality type according to the Big Five. I, for instance, rate very high on "openness to new experience." A personality like mine should switch and try new things often. There are many people who rank low on openness to new experience, preferring stability and predictability. Those sorts of people should stay in the already-good role you're in. There is intrinsic value simply in switching what we do: for the experience of the switch itself, even if some switches end up disastrous. But the amount of that value depends a lot on one's personality.
My intuition is that you will do very well regardless of your choice here, because the way you describe your situation does not take your existing circumstances for granted, seeing only green grass on the other side. Your personality is likely to find things to be grateful for regardless of circumstance, and that serves you well.