

Robot Scientist: the best job ever? - sharpshoot
http://snaptalent.com/ads/80
Trevor's ad for anybots.
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darragjm
Sigh...I emailed Trevor last year about my desire to work there but never
heard back from him. Now that I'm going to Stanford's ME grad program this
fall maybe I can weasel my way into some other robotics startup...

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ivankirigin
Companies are generally very open to collaborate with universities. I've been
on both sides of this for robotics -- doing research at CMU and doing research
at robotics companies.

The best approach would be to troll available grants, pick something that you
think would be fun to work on, and work on a proposal with a company.

Some grants are really easy to get, like SBIRs. Some are designed for
collaboration between universities and companies, like STTRs.

If you're a self-funded student, you should seriously consider working on
whatever you find most interesting, and dedicating serious time to it.
Inferior alternatives include focusing on classes and splitting time among a
few projects. The ideal grade in a class is the minimal grade needed to pass.
That means you're actually spending time on research.

Contact companies you think might be interested, and ask what they'd like to
see made. Treat it like market research, and not a sales pitch. Don't even ask
about a job. Making good things is all you need to do to get a good job.

Proposal writing is also a good way to practice both technical writing and
product design.

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darragjm
Thank you for the excellent suggestions! I've been working on bigger DoD
contracts at my current job, so I'm pretty oblivious to the small
company/university grant process.

Since I'm entering Stanford with the intent to obtain a terminal Master's, I'm
not sure how much research I'll be allowed or encouraged to participate in.
Continuing for my Doctorate is certainly still an option, but I think I'm
leaning towards getting my Master's and finding/founding some small company to
work with.

Any other insight you have into my situation would be appreciated!

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ivankirigin
If you don't want to do pure research for more than a few years, don't bother
with a PhD. Building real things is more valuable. If you happen to be
researching something very related to the real world, like some farm robot or
robo soccer, you can trust a PhD will demand enough practical and operational
skills to be useful even if you don't continue doing research.

Big defense projects are very, very different than SBIRs and STTRs.

Most importantly: you don't need permission to do cool work. It would be
better to add a semester and do research than to just do coursework. I can't
stress this enough.

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nextmoveone
They should totally have apprenticeships, it results in cheaper labor with
more focus on your technologies in the long run. Take Zoho for example, they
recruit kids who are still in high school to become programmers for them.

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paulgb
This is slightly off-topic, but is there no way (yet?) to browse jobs on
snaptalent? I can't even get their widget to load in my browser on sites that
have it, for some reason (Firefox and Opera on Linux).

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dfranke
Sites like Monster are plagued by hordes of pizza-delivery boys who apply for
programming jobs because all they have to do is click a button. I think the
whole idea behind Snaptalent is that jobs ads only appear to targeted
audiences, so the delivery boys never see them unless the delivery boys read
news.yc.

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paulgb
Ah, thanks. The widget is working for me now on blogs that use it, so it's
less of an issue now anyway.

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apgwoz
Interested? Of course I am! Talented enough? Doubtful :(

