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&D team in a start-up that was recently acquired by a large investor.
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's work is to bug-fix legacy spaghetti code. Everything that goes beyond the scope of a two-weeks "sprint" horizon is not considered worth it.
I am losing hope that things will improve in this company.
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.
Instead, I want to work in ML/NLP with a nice and diverse team, ideally in an interesting domain (subjective).
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/research topics, but I value a strategic approach with a vision that goes beyond selling out as soon as possible.
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.
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.
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?
