
How to find a good Machine Learning Engineer job? - seekerEU
I am an experienced machine learning engineer (focus on NLP). I am in a good, well-paid job with very nice colleagues, leading a medium-size R&amp;D team in a start-up that was recently acquired by a large investor.<p>The company is becoming more and more bureaucratic though. Introducing state-of-the-art technology or research have become virtually impossible. Most of my team&#x27;s work is to bug-fix legacy spaghetti code. Everything that goes beyond the scope of a two-weeks &quot;sprint&quot; horizon is not considered worth it.
I am losing hope that things will improve in this company.<p>Hence, I am passively looking for a new job. I am in a European city with many tech start-ups. However, I am not going to give up my current job for some vague promises about finding the new big thing in domain X, or to throw myself into insane working hours or an otherwise toxic environment.<p>Instead, I want to work in ML&#x2F;NLP with a nice and diverse team, ideally in an interesting domain (subjective).<p>I do not care too much about whether it is a genuine start-up or a corporate, as long as people and structure are somewhat sane.
Same goes for specific technology&#x2F;research topics, but I value a strategic approach with a vision that goes beyond selling out as soon as possible.<p>I am not asking for advice on where to find my next dream job. I am more interested in specific tips about how to search, and how to find certainty before signing a contract and quitting my job.<p>Every recruiter tells you that things are perfect in their company, and brags about their technology stack. The latter is a bit easier to verify by talking to other engineers, but in general I find it extremely difficult to foresee what you are running into with a new job.<p>What are your positive and negative experiences while looking for new jobs? What are red flags that you missed during the recruitment process? What did indicate a truly good work place?
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itronitron
I think you should work to make your current employer the best match for your
interests. That probably involves socializing with different teams (marketing,
support, etc.) meeting with clients and users to understand what their needs
are. If the company is only focused two weeks out then it sounds like they
have a leadership gap. Find the person who is responsible for the longer time
frame and find out what their long term concerns are.

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rman666
It feels like you might be looking for (or wanting to feel) assurances that
are just not possible in this day in age. I’m in the US so your mileage may
vary, but generally no jobs here offer the stability they used to.
Corporations broke the contract first, and now employees no longer feel
obligated to their employers either. It seems everyone needs to keep up-to-
date on their skills, take their chances with a job, and be ready to move on
quickly if it doesn’t work or circumstances change. The good thing about this
is that employees gain experience with more companies than before, and that’s
a good thing (IMHO). You can make it even better by developing a brand for
yourself.

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badpun
> The latter is a bit easier to verify by talking to other engineers, but in
> general I find it extremely difficult to foresee what you are running into
> with a new job.

Ask the hiring manager what will your typical tasks be, and then try to detect
if/how much is he lying I guess? Look out for usual red flags, like being
ambigious or avoiding difficult subjects (such as - how bad the codebase is,
how much maintenance vs greenfield work will you be doing, will you be able to
influence the direction of the work, or are you just someone they need to
implement their ideas).

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stonogo
Consider applying to research institutions. ETH Zurich and LRZ come to mind as
examples.

