Be in a field where tech is the limit(mathiaskirkbonde.substack.com)
mathiaskirkbonde.substack.com
Be in a field where tech is the limit
https://mathiaskirkbonde.substack.com/p/be-in-a-field-where-tech-is-the-limit
212 comments
I'm always curious when I hear HN opine on salary levels. Now I understand that in SF / at certain FAANG locations you can expect to make far in excess of 80-100k, and that exerts a competitive pressure in the job market - while also being balanced to some extend by extreme CoL. But I always wonder just how small that bubble is and what the trade-offs really are. In essentially all of Central Europe except perhaps, say, Zurich, 80k-110k is a highly-salaried engineer (and affords an upper-middleclass lifestyle with good healthcare, pension, free college education, etc.), and I understand also in many areas of the US that are just fine to live in.
It just sounds like completely different systems / way to run the numbers to me, not at all apples to apples.
It just sounds like completely different systems / way to run the numbers to me, not at all apples to apples.
No, even after any attempt to account for healthcare, pension and education the US will still look vastly better off. Unfortunately we don’t have figures on average individual consumption but by household Hong Kong consumes about $1,000 more a year than the US and the next closest is Switzerland, consuming about $10,000 a year less[1].
Generally the US pays better and at the top of any field you care to mention except perhaps finance it pays far, far better.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household...
Generally the US pays better and at the top of any field you care to mention except perhaps finance it pays far, far better.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household...
> except perhaps finance it pays far, far better.
I hear this a lot, but I've never seen it. I know plenty of people in tech making the better part of $1 MM a year at FAANG, and a few who even breach that. Most people I know in finance never break $500k.
So how much do people make in finance?
I hear this a lot, but I've never seen it. I know plenty of people in tech making the better part of $1 MM a year at FAANG, and a few who even breach that. Most people I know in finance never break $500k.
So how much do people make in finance?
A friend retired with more than 1M after four years in finance and living the life in NY, like he was not saving much. Most of his comp was commissions on what his algorithms or the stuff his team worked on was marking on the market. His base salary and comp were a little bit above Google, were he worked before switching to finance.
Top traders at hedge funds are the people who become billionaires. You can easily make 2, 5, 10m+ once you become a partner.
Pre 2008 a lot of people were retiring in 4 years. Things have changed (smaller parties) but people are still getting rich. The top tier are crushing faang salaries. A million a year is a lot but more can be available when you are trading.
The top tier in finance are NOT crushing the top tier in tech. No way. All these IPOS + Faang are making 10s of thousands of millionaire mid-level engineers, thousands of decamillionaire VPs and angels, and dozens of billionaires, year after year.
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Hedge fund and PE folks can make way more than that (performance dependent).
US households are slightly bigger than European households (2.6 vs 2.2-2.3), but yeah, the US is on average much richer than most wealthier European states. A good comparison is states to countries - Germany is about the level of Alabama and UK is like Mississippi I think.
$80k-100k would afford a great lifestyle in much of the US, geographically speaking. The problem is that those jobs are concentrated in areas with a higher COL. We also have to pay for things like medical insurance in the US. I know software salaries are lower in the EU (in general), I assume it's the same for biotech too.
The US government data for software engineers says that the median wage across the us is $110k/year. Importantly though that doesn’t include bonuses or stock, which appear to be reasonably common even outside the tech hubs. I suspect the “real” number is closer to $115-120k one those are taken into account. Software engineers really do get paid very well across most of the US, it’s just most pronounced in the tech hubs.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151256.htm#st
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151256.htm#st
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
Even with the higher cost of living in SF/NYC/Seattle, tech pay at FAANG is pretty high. Senior software positions are pretty much start at $300k/yr across all of those companies. Plus these companies generally have excellent healthcare plans and good vacation policies.
At those income levels pretty much the only thing you’re really priced out of are nice single family homes, but I suspect that’s the same in Zurich.
At those income levels pretty much the only thing you’re really priced out of are nice single family homes, but I suspect that’s the same in Zurich.
> At those income levels pretty much the only thing you’re really priced out of are nice single family homes, but I suspect that’s the same in Zurich.
You'll never pay it completely but if you can afford a mortgage you'll build equity into it and probably be able to resell it at a profit.
You'll never pay it completely but if you can afford a mortgage you'll build equity into it and probably be able to resell it at a profit.
Sounds like it! :-)
I have a Senior Principal position and make products you've probably read about on Ars/Verge type sites recently, at an established tech company in Berlin - for about half of those 300k. And it's not a bad deal for the region.
I have a Senior Principal position and make products you've probably read about on Ars/Verge type sites recently, at an established tech company in Berlin - for about half of those 300k. And it's not a bad deal for the region.
What's a good vacation policy in SF? I'm tempted to move from London, but I currently get 28 days holiday a year + 8 public holidays + birthday + Xmas to NY (so about 40 days give or take). I know there's a lot of "unlimited" holiday policies - but would they really be okay if I took that kind of holiday?
I earn a lot here in London, but moving to SF would be a significant bump. However, I very much value my time off.
I earn a lot here in London, but moving to SF would be a significant bump. However, I very much value my time off.
My Anecdata - I moved from London to SF ~4 years ago (working for the same FAANG company before-and-after), and have never even bothered looking at my PTO accrual because a) I wouldn't even spend it fast enough to run it down, and b) my managers have always been very clear that I should take whatever PTO I want whether or not I officially have hours accrued.
Officially, though, I (just found out that I) have 20 discretionary days per year (plus American holidays).
Officially, though, I (just found out that I) have 20 discretionary days per year (plus American holidays).
2 weeks is considered minimal/entry level, 3 weeks is average and 4 weeks is quite good for the US.
Not SF, but at my big tech employer it’s 3 weeks of vacation, 2 floating holidays (which are really just vacation), 10 company holidays, and 2 weeks sick leave. After 6 and 12 years you get another week of vacation. So total is 27 to start, not including sick leave. I’ve heard more experienced new hires can sometimes negotiate in more vacation (up to 5 weeks) but I haven’t experienced that directly myself.
There are also all sorts of special purpose leaves (jury duty, infant care, bereavement, etc...) that can become quite substantial.
All that being said I’ve almost never had a boss who cared about tracking my vacation too closely, and I’ve never felt pressured to not take time off when I want to, other than a half dozen critical weeks a year.
There are also all sorts of special purpose leaves (jury duty, infant care, bereavement, etc...) that can become quite substantial.
All that being said I’ve almost never had a boss who cared about tracking my vacation too closely, and I’ve never felt pressured to not take time off when I want to, other than a half dozen critical weeks a year.
It's very much a mixed bag.
The "unlimited" thing became popular in California in part as an attempt on behalf of companies to avoid having to issue payouts for accrued time off to employees leaving their organizations.
I'd suggest simply being very up front and specific in interviewing and negotiations about how much time you plan to take and see what kind of reactions you get.
The "unlimited" thing became popular in California in part as an attempt on behalf of companies to avoid having to issue payouts for accrued time off to employees leaving their organizations.
I'd suggest simply being very up front and specific in interviewing and negotiations about how much time you plan to take and see what kind of reactions you get.
At my company in the Bay Area, we get 30 days vacation plus 10 holidays. For the first few years, it was a bit less vacation.
When the associate data scientists are making $100-150k, and the product/graphic designers are lucky to be getting $80k, that's pretty fucking top-heavy and absurd.
You're not comparing apples to apples. Senior designers and data scientists also typically make 250K+ (and often 300K+) at these companies.
The creation of the EU created a situation where supply increased which meant salaries were not going to rise in the richer EU countries. The free college, health care, services is the reason for the taxes.
We will see salaries in the UK increase over Germany.
Lower salaries make it easier for businesses to compete.
We will see salaries in the UK increase over Germany.
Lower salaries make it easier for businesses to compete.
Taxes in California aren't that different from Germany.
I worked as a post-doc at a pharma company in Europe, our research-based department was in need of a software engineer as our collection of crappy R/python scripts couldn't actually be linked up to any equipment or processes.
HR asked what sort of salary range we were looking at, we suggested that we won't get any decent candidates for less than 70k EUR and were laughed out of the room and they decided on a 50k limit. I've since left, but I'm pretty sure they've still not manage to hire a software engineer.
HR asked what sort of salary range we were looking at, we suggested that we won't get any decent candidates for less than 70k EUR and were laughed out of the room and they decided on a 50k limit. I've since left, but I'm pretty sure they've still not manage to hire a software engineer.
This bums me out so much. I would love to work on medical research and I love data pipelines, so something like bioinformatics R/Python seems ideal to me, but I make significantly more than that as the manager of a software team in an enterprise environment so it's never going to happen unless I somehow get to the point where I don't have to care about money.
Honestly though, that trade-off seems quite fair to me. I mean, the big ah-hah I had after I spent about half a decade in software management roles is that the management track pays more because the jobs suck more. That is, the jobs themselves are actually quite undesirable for your average person. A job that is more rewarding naturally has more competition and thus pays less.
I think that's part of it, but I suspect it has more to do commercial enterprises being more competitive due to their greater resources.
> HR asked what sort of salary range we were looking at, we suggested that we won't get any decent candidates for less than 70k EUR and were laughed out of the room and they decided on a 50k limit. I've since left, but I'm pretty sure they've still not manage to hire a software engineer.
Just relocate your lab to be in the US and associated with a US University. Then you can hire a Masters/PhD student from Europe's top schools at that salary.
Just relocate your lab to be in the US and associated with a US University. Then you can hire a Masters/PhD student from Europe's top schools at that salary.
And how exactly would you relocate? This is not the same as moving a stack from one DC to another. You have families, ties, visas, legal...
On the plus side, the average level of engineers in Europe seems to be fairly high.
On the negaive side, yeah, all the truly high talented people will leave because the salaries in Europe can be so laughably low.
Trying to figure out how to move back to my home country now, but short of director level positions, there’s just nothing with a comparable salary range.
On the negaive side, yeah, all the truly high talented people will leave because the salaries in Europe can be so laughably low.
Trying to figure out how to move back to my home country now, but short of director level positions, there’s just nothing with a comparable salary range.
I would argue against the statement that all 'truly high talented people' (whatever that may mean) will leave Europe because the salaries are too low. At least in Academia I know plenty of smart people happily working away in Europe. I suppose it may well be different outside of academia, but not every (smart/talented) person in the world has a high salary as their #1 priority. To me, and to many of my friends/acquaintances, quality of life is also extremely important. I would rather, in the long term, live in a economically and politically stable country with good public (health) services and receive mediocre payment, than to receive high payment but with poor quality of life.
One of my best friends is a CS prof in Sweden and loves it there and he finds the academic culture less stressful and cut throat than here.
You can get good quality of life in US even without a monstruous salary, and political situation is not really worse than what is happening in Europe...
Well, it's not necessarily easy to leave. Getting into the US is hard and Canada seems to only be marginally worth it, at least the last time I researched that.
Just to let you know. I am a French developer, making around ~45k€. While I won't pretend to be "truly high talented", I am convinced that by moving to the US and I could double that. But... I don't want to.
I live in Southern France, which is a nice place (with good food). I have enough money to do almost whatever I want and have savings. I have 7 to 8 weeks/year of paid leave, which I can use pretty much when I want to. Health/unemployment insurance is included. Granted, I have no kids (by choice), but what more could I want? More money for what? Luxuries I won't even enjoy because I would be overworked?
I like the US and its people, and I understand that my way of life is not everyone's, but that's to give you some perspective on why some very talented European may want to stay in Europe despite the "low" pay.
A friend of mine, a mother of one, was almost begged by Google to work for them, with I suppose, the kind of pay a PhD in natural language processing can expect. She refused, instead preferring a much lower pay but with an incredible work/life balance.
I live in Southern France, which is a nice place (with good food). I have enough money to do almost whatever I want and have savings. I have 7 to 8 weeks/year of paid leave, which I can use pretty much when I want to. Health/unemployment insurance is included. Granted, I have no kids (by choice), but what more could I want? More money for what? Luxuries I won't even enjoy because I would be overworked?
I like the US and its people, and I understand that my way of life is not everyone's, but that's to give you some perspective on why some very talented European may want to stay in Europe despite the "low" pay.
A friend of mine, a mother of one, was almost begged by Google to work for them, with I suppose, the kind of pay a PhD in natural language processing can expect. She refused, instead preferring a much lower pay but with an incredible work/life balance.
Not double, easy 10x for a decent senior engineer at a top 10 software company.
I am sure you are making the best trade off and respect that, but use the real values. Double is for a fresh grad in top US markets.
I am sure you are making the best trade off and respect that, but use the real values. Double is for a fresh grad in top US markets.
108k for a fresh grad? That's just not accurate.
The Greater NYC area will net an entry level dev 60-75k max in most cases. 108k is much closer to the average, taking into account highly experienced outliers.
National average of entry level dev salaries for reference: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Entry-Level-Software-D...
The Greater NYC area will net an entry level dev 60-75k max in most cases. 108k is much closer to the average, taking into account highly experienced outliers.
National average of entry level dev salaries for reference: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Entry-Level-Software-D...
Even startups pay somewhere between 120k and 150k for a fresh graduate in CS (Bay Area).
If you’re not then I would suggest learning a bit more about negotiating. Ask for what you want. The worst they can do is say no... but you’re very rarely going to lose an offer for asking for too much. They already spent months finding you. If it’s in budget or the pay band you’ll get it.
If you’re not then I would suggest learning a bit more about negotiating. Ask for what you want. The worst they can do is say no... but you’re very rarely going to lose an offer for asking for too much. They already spent months finding you. If it’s in budget or the pay band you’ll get it.
Taking a glance at levels.fyi, in NYC for people with one year of experience there isn't a single entry from Google below $150k. Similar for Amazon.
FAANG salaries are outliers, no doubt about that
Are they outliers? Most public “name brand” tech companies I can think of out here pay like that. Uber/airbnb/lyft come to mind. Hell, I’m at a under the radar (but still public) company and we get paid the same as FAANG. Sure it’s not the norm, but outlier is a stretch. Especially when you account for the disproportionate headcount at the high paying companies.
FAANG hire maybe the top 5% of SEs. By definition most of us will never get there. Especially if you don’t have the willpower to waste months for training to the interview.
At least in SF it’s totally accurate.
my shop is paying $125k for undergrad CS/computer engineering just out of school
Finding a way to consult for some US companies could get you your €45k a year for half a year's worth of work; and you could start small during those weeks of paid leave. Location arbitrage.
I could do that, I think. I know someone who does that. He worked in the US for some time and went back to France consulting for both French and American companies. Lots of time off and good pay (for France).
But... he is self employed, which means a significant part of his work includes sales and management. That's something I don't enjoy doing and I am very happy having a boss do it for me. He also has more tax and less employee protection and other advantages, which he compensates by having insurance, but that extra expense is to be considered when comparing income (it is still more than me in the end).
As I said, I am content with my life, even though I know I could make is "better" if I really wanted to. It is just an insight on a reason why many engineers prefer to stay despite the "low" pay.
Also worth noting that many French people dislike the very idea of working in the US. Sometimes because they don't like the culture or the sometimes misguided idea they have of it. Sometimes it is the language, or just moving and leaving their relatives behind. Canada, especially Quebec can be a "milder" alternative, I have several friends who went there, some stayed, others came back, I think the pay was higher there every time.
But... he is self employed, which means a significant part of his work includes sales and management. That's something I don't enjoy doing and I am very happy having a boss do it for me. He also has more tax and less employee protection and other advantages, which he compensates by having insurance, but that extra expense is to be considered when comparing income (it is still more than me in the end).
As I said, I am content with my life, even though I know I could make is "better" if I really wanted to. It is just an insight on a reason why many engineers prefer to stay despite the "low" pay.
Also worth noting that many French people dislike the very idea of working in the US. Sometimes because they don't like the culture or the sometimes misguided idea they have of it. Sometimes it is the language, or just moving and leaving their relatives behind. Canada, especially Quebec can be a "milder" alternative, I have several friends who went there, some stayed, others came back, I think the pay was higher there every time.
For a lot of companies you would be working as a "contractor" simply because they don't have a business entity in France. You would essentially be a full-time employee in every regard outside how your pay and benefits are managed.
No excessive self-promoting, networking, or book keeping necessary.
No excessive self-promoting, networking, or book keeping necessary.
It's not black and white. I'm working remotely in New Zealand making more than 45k euros with 1 YOE and my company seems to care a lot about W/L balance.
I'm sure there are also office-based US companies with good pay and W/L balance.
I'm sure there are also office-based US companies with good pay and W/L balance.
>I'm sure there are also office-based US companies with good pay and W/L balance.
They are increasingly difficult to find.
They are increasingly difficult to find.
I've done work for one American company selling services in EU, the pay was beyond amazing and lots of work benefits I could never get from local companies. But work life, considering the jargon of the US managers I really wonder how people in the US have time for anything but work. I'll take less pay and happier life any day.
I think someone on HN commented on life in Denmark from a US perspective; that people are only happy because they settle for less. My personal experience is the exact opposit, better life can only come at the expense of work productivity.
I think someone on HN commented on life in Denmark from a US perspective; that people are only happy because they settle for less. My personal experience is the exact opposit, better life can only come at the expense of work productivity.
I will respond as a French dev working in the US since a small decade.
Let’s just start by saying that back home, every worker has 5 week of pays vacation by law.
Most qualify worker get 6 , and it’s not uncommon to go in the 7 or 8 with seniority.
Just with that simple fact the « work life balance » a US company has to offer is kinda cute compared to what I would get automatically.
Then come childcare, education and healthcare. Being childless in the US is fine, but when you see the cost of a child you understand the large salaries.
Something I still don’t get after 10 years is how poor people afford kids in this country.
Let’s just start by saying that back home, every worker has 5 week of pays vacation by law.
Most qualify worker get 6 , and it’s not uncommon to go in the 7 or 8 with seniority.
Just with that simple fact the « work life balance » a US company has to offer is kinda cute compared to what I would get automatically.
Then come childcare, education and healthcare. Being childless in the US is fine, but when you see the cost of a child you understand the large salaries.
Something I still don’t get after 10 years is how poor people afford kids in this country.
And that's only the half of it. I work for a small software company based in the US with low salaries for the industry. We recently had a benefits meeting and the health insurance scheme was explained with all the little details about the ways you can still receive big bills if you aren't carful. It's mind boggling that this $10,000 per employee per year plan can still result in serious bill anxiety for software engineers working 12 hours a day, living in studio apartments in a HCOL city. The quality of life in the USA can be quite bleak.
> Let’s just start by saying that back home, every worker has 5 week of pays vacation by law.
The laws and baselines could be better for sure. But in the context of Software Engineering for a talented person it's possible to work for non-FAANG companies that pay quite well and offer things like "unlimited" vacation. Unlimited enough that up to 8 weeks a year spread out a bit is not going to cause any issues.
> how poor people afford kids in this country
They live a different life-style. Much more multi-generational and community support for child raising.
The laws and baselines could be better for sure. But in the context of Software Engineering for a talented person it's possible to work for non-FAANG companies that pay quite well and offer things like "unlimited" vacation. Unlimited enough that up to 8 weeks a year spread out a bit is not going to cause any issues.
> how poor people afford kids in this country
They live a different life-style. Much more multi-generational and community support for child raising.
> Unlimited enough that up to 8 weeks a year spread out a bit is not going to cause any issues.
That varies by a huge amount depending on company and team and manager. I have unlimited PTO and if I took 8 weeks in a year, I’d be an outlier. I’d also have to be very very careful about optics.
That varies by a huge amount depending on company and team and manager. I have unlimited PTO and if I took 8 weeks in a year, I’d be an outlier. I’d also have to be very very careful about optics.
I’m a software engineer with a lot of demonstrable skills and good credentials.
Like I said in another comment the money is stupid high in this industry and country.
I take it of course. And I had unlimited PTO 3 times in 3 different places at this point.
It depend greatly of the implementation. But overall I feel that the only real time off I get is between jobs. Where I usually take one full month. ( if the next job refuse; I take it as a red flag )
It’s not the same, unlimited PTO have to be placed carefully and you have to be mindful about optics.
PTO that you earned and are enumerated on your pay stub are more enforceable.
I would rather have 4 week of normal PTO that a unlimited vacation policies that I’m not sure will be well inplemented.
Large companies tends to do it correctly. In that context I was usually taking 5 weeks. But with some stress and guilt and kinda check my work inbox.
Not the same. But then …you guys have those massive paychecks… I will take them while I can.
Like I said in another comment the money is stupid high in this industry and country.
I take it of course. And I had unlimited PTO 3 times in 3 different places at this point.
It depend greatly of the implementation. But overall I feel that the only real time off I get is between jobs. Where I usually take one full month. ( if the next job refuse; I take it as a red flag )
It’s not the same, unlimited PTO have to be placed carefully and you have to be mindful about optics.
PTO that you earned and are enumerated on your pay stub are more enforceable.
I would rather have 4 week of normal PTO that a unlimited vacation policies that I’m not sure will be well inplemented.
Large companies tends to do it correctly. In that context I was usually taking 5 weeks. But with some stress and guilt and kinda check my work inbox.
Not the same. But then …you guys have those massive paychecks… I will take them while I can.
Yeah. French dev kinda stuck on the other side for families reason.
You are on the right side of the fence, they have no idea.
Salary are insane here in the US. Like: not following sane guidelines.
I’m currently at times 5 what I would earn back home. I don’t think it’s gonna stop. Every job is a solid 20% increase.
As soon as I can, I’m still gonna go back to civilisation. Auvergne, here I come.
They are just pushing me out of the workforce earlier by giving me more money. Also: what is your fucking problem with vacations?
Salary are insane here in the US. Like: not following sane guidelines.
I’m currently at times 5 what I would earn back home. I don’t think it’s gonna stop. Every job is a solid 20% increase.
As soon as I can, I’m still gonna go back to civilisation. Auvergne, here I come.
They are just pushing me out of the workforce earlier by giving me more money. Also: what is your fucking problem with vacations?
Yeah, Portuguese living in Germany, and have lived in several other European countries before.
I would rather move to other European country to ever bother with US, exactly for the same reasons you mention.
I would rather move to other European country to ever bother with US, exactly for the same reasons you mention.
True, my comparison isn’t really with the US. It’s with Japan, which has most of the socialist goodness that Europe has aside from the generous leave policies (but tons of national holidays to sort of make up for it).
It also sort of implicitly includes the assumption that you still won’t work more than your 7.5-8 hours a day. Working 50% more for 50% more salary obviously is no gain at all.
That said, while I know that the word ‘stress’ didn’t really apply to my jobs in Europe, I find it hard to turn back the clock on my expectations (for both pay and work/life balance).
If I don’t go back I’m hoping I can build a little enclave of sanity for my team here at least.
It also sort of implicitly includes the assumption that you still won’t work more than your 7.5-8 hours a day. Working 50% more for 50% more salary obviously is no gain at all.
That said, while I know that the word ‘stress’ didn’t really apply to my jobs in Europe, I find it hard to turn back the clock on my expectations (for both pay and work/life balance).
If I don’t go back I’m hoping I can build a little enclave of sanity for my team here at least.
I fully get what you are saying.
I am French and live in the western suburbs of Paris. I have a job that does not require me to get into Paris and despite having had several opportunities, I passed.
I like the quiet environment, biking to the office, even if it means a lesser pay.
I am French and live in the western suburbs of Paris. I have a job that does not require me to get into Paris and despite having had several opportunities, I passed.
I like the quiet environment, biking to the office, even if it means a lesser pay.
In many EU countries 50k is already top 10% salary for Engineers but it seems like things are changing and in Germany it can go up to even 100k+ EUR (as seen on GermanTechJobs.de)
Different story in Switzerland where you can easy get 140k+ CHF.
Different story in Switzerland where you can easy get 140k+ CHF.
I had the same problem in academia. They asked me what I would need to get that project evolving (and thus funded), at that time a single medium xp dev, and the salary range was the same as their tenure track professors. Then they ask if a student can do it instead... There is no way anything can be done in mainland US in term of software for institutions that can't pay. I know places where they hire companies oversea to do their dev, bit thats complicated with federal funding.
Is this in a big city? In the UK 50k GBP is a pretty normative rate for a mid tier developer in much of the country.
Depends on where and what you're looking for. I'd say 60k-80k€ would be normal rates in wealthier federal states for a decent "mid-tier" developer from what I've seen, which wouldn't be too dissimilar to 50k GBP.
Were you in Switzerland or Scandinavia?
In most of Europe you can find a good young engineer/developer with several years of experience for €50k.
In most of Europe you can find a good young engineer/developer with several years of experience for €50k.
I don't understand, you guys have PhDs, why can't you write a script yourself?
Porting it to java will speed it up a few x,
and if it uses some silly library like pandas or numpy or spark then consider it a great time to rewrite it from scratch properly with no dependencies :)
Porting it to java will speed it up a few x,
and if it uses some silly library like pandas or numpy or spark then consider it a great time to rewrite it from scratch properly with no dependencies :)
If they had enough work for a developer, how long would it take some enthusiastic amateurs?
DIY doesn’t sound like a saving here.
DIY doesn’t sound like a saving here.
Phd in unrelated field means nothing. Physics don't repair their own gas boilers, and civil engineerings don't plaster their own walls. Even if they have a lot of time on their hands and an interest in developing the skill, they still stuck compared to the person who does it for their day job. The physicist will probably kill themselves and their families. The pharma phd won't be able to build a service that's usable by multiple people simultaneously, with authentication, a sound database schema, CI pipelines. It's always gonna be a shitty collection of "scripts" when what they need is software. I think the point is that they have shitty scripts already. Also, who's gonna review their code? Is there even gonna be code review? Or version control?
This pattern leads to some feature incomplete rewrite being done slowly.
You can be able to cook for yourself to survive but not be a great chef. So you might not have high engineering expectations from researchers either, as it's not their job.
Also, if you wanted to rewrite some scientific code relatively painlessly, perhaps D would be a vastly better choice than Java.
Also, if you wanted to rewrite some scientific code relatively painlessly, perhaps D would be a vastly better choice than Java.
Rewriting a silly library like numpy or spark from scratch to make your life easier? Rewriting numpy in java for speed? Hell rewriting spark in java for speed?? That’s a hugely massive undertaking that wouldn’t gain you any benefit.
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i have so many questions about this comment
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I looked into biotech before I jumped into an aerospace startup a few career moves ago. Did some consulting and everything to test the waters, which was compensated "ok" but like half of the hourly rate of doing something even shittier for Google or Facebook.
Besides the top heavy compensation problem, the other problem I had with biotech is that everything is swamped in patents, NDAs, secret patents, secret NDAs and in the US there's also a lot of spooky secret government bullshit. I worked on information security so I'm not that scared of three letter agencies, but in my short time dealing with biotech they were actually not letting me do my job, which had never happened before.
Besides the top heavy compensation problem, the other problem I had with biotech is that everything is swamped in patents, NDAs, secret patents, secret NDAs and in the US there's also a lot of spooky secret government bullshit. I worked on information security so I'm not that scared of three letter agencies, but in my short time dealing with biotech they were actually not letting me do my job, which had never happened before.
The grievances shared in this thread re biotech salaries are certainly valid, no doubt. But the field is slowly going through a generational change. There are more and more companies that organize themselves around engineering (software or not) as their main mission. These workplaces then have to grapple with the fact that in order to attract engineering talent, the historical wage suppression of biotech needs to go.
Shameless plug: I'm CTO at Streamline Genomics, a Canadian biotech startup, and tech is our limit. We're remote-first and we're hiring for a bunch of positions: https://www.streamlinegenomics.com/careers
Shameless plug: I'm CTO at Streamline Genomics, a Canadian biotech startup, and tech is our limit. We're remote-first and we're hiring for a bunch of positions: https://www.streamlinegenomics.com/careers
Can you share more about some of the technical problems Streamline works on?
Sure!
Our domain is precision oncology. In brief, this is about matching cancer patients with available targeted therapies by examining the genome of their cancer. This is different from how the majority of cancer patients are treated today: surgery and {chemo,radio}therapy.
Here is a problem in our domain where tech is one of the limiting factors.
If you look at the DNA of any cell and compare it against the reference genome, you'll find a lot of differences, aka variants. Typically even more so if you're looking at a sequenced tumour (~1e6 variants). This is your hay stack. And a variant that can be medically targeted to treat the cancer is the needle. The definition of what variant is "clinically relevant" is layered, context-dependent, and (partially) regulated. Software is responsible for automating away the majority of variants, say down to 10-100, in a justifiable, traceable way. It's also responsible for giving tools to the clinician to deal with the remaining ones. This manual step typically involves an informed line of questioning about each variant backed by 100s of supporting data points about it.
Without these two tech pieces, interpreting a single molecular pathology report can and does take many hours of (expensive) expert time, instead of minutes. For a rough sense of scale: human genome has ~3e9 nucleotides (ACTG), has ~3e4 known genes, ~1e6 known gene interactions, and ~1e8 known variants. Typical whole genome sequencing produces > 30GB of raw data (compressed).
This is probably the first problem everyone runs into. There are plenty of other ones, some more challenging and interesting than others. Feel free to send me an e-mail if you'd like to discuss this more! amir[at]streamlinegenomics.com
Our domain is precision oncology. In brief, this is about matching cancer patients with available targeted therapies by examining the genome of their cancer. This is different from how the majority of cancer patients are treated today: surgery and {chemo,radio}therapy.
Here is a problem in our domain where tech is one of the limiting factors.
If you look at the DNA of any cell and compare it against the reference genome, you'll find a lot of differences, aka variants. Typically even more so if you're looking at a sequenced tumour (~1e6 variants). This is your hay stack. And a variant that can be medically targeted to treat the cancer is the needle. The definition of what variant is "clinically relevant" is layered, context-dependent, and (partially) regulated. Software is responsible for automating away the majority of variants, say down to 10-100, in a justifiable, traceable way. It's also responsible for giving tools to the clinician to deal with the remaining ones. This manual step typically involves an informed line of questioning about each variant backed by 100s of supporting data points about it.
Without these two tech pieces, interpreting a single molecular pathology report can and does take many hours of (expensive) expert time, instead of minutes. For a rough sense of scale: human genome has ~3e9 nucleotides (ACTG), has ~3e4 known genes, ~1e6 known gene interactions, and ~1e8 known variants. Typical whole genome sequencing produces > 30GB of raw data (compressed).
This is probably the first problem everyone runs into. There are plenty of other ones, some more challenging and interesting than others. Feel free to send me an e-mail if you'd like to discuss this more! amir[at]streamlinegenomics.com
From what I've seen, much of the delta in pay is actually the result of lower profit margins.
Facebook, as an extreme example of profitability, can pay its directors and EMs $1m+ per year in total comp, but it's not top-heavy - it pays its engineers ~$200k out of undergrad and >$350k after a few years.
By contrast, I know of many cool hyped-up hardware unicorns and biotech companies, and none can compare to FAANG in pay because software scales in a way that other businesses can't. (One hardware unicorn pays its new grad SWEs $60-70k).
Unless the biotech company is actually a biotech-focused SaaS company, it's inherently going to have a higher unit cost that prevents software-level comp. It's a disappointing effect of the current system we live in.
Facebook, as an extreme example of profitability, can pay its directors and EMs $1m+ per year in total comp, but it's not top-heavy - it pays its engineers ~$200k out of undergrad and >$350k after a few years.
By contrast, I know of many cool hyped-up hardware unicorns and biotech companies, and none can compare to FAANG in pay because software scales in a way that other businesses can't. (One hardware unicorn pays its new grad SWEs $60-70k).
Unless the biotech company is actually a biotech-focused SaaS company, it's inherently going to have a higher unit cost that prevents software-level comp. It's a disappointing effect of the current system we live in.
The only way to get around these cultural/institutional barriers is to found your own business. I started a pharma company and ran it like a startup (bc it was a startup). Paid decent salaries, worked really hard (literally, one of our contractors complained, “you guys work so hard”). Exited before our phase I/II completed.
A parallel way is to start a company that only does one part, say a software based part. Pharma will pay more for tools that solve their problems than they would pay for a couple of FTEs to solve their problem directly. The problem is your customer may not know how to put your product to use, or even understand its value. So sales is no slam dunk.
I loved my time in the pharma business but was happy to go back to what’s called “tech.” Culturally the life sciences CES are full of some dreadful pathological practices, and I prefer the pathological practices I’m familiar with :-(.
A parallel way is to start a company that only does one part, say a software based part. Pharma will pay more for tools that solve their problems than they would pay for a couple of FTEs to solve their problem directly. The problem is your customer may not know how to put your product to use, or even understand its value. So sales is no slam dunk.
I loved my time in the pharma business but was happy to go back to what’s called “tech.” Culturally the life sciences CES are full of some dreadful pathological practices, and I prefer the pathological practices I’m familiar with :-(.
Sigh.
Speaking as someone who has spent the last six years of their career working on advanced physics in various technology sectors (including biotech) and then trying to make various 2D-xene materials work for semiconductors, I’ll tell you one thing:
They pay you shit and if you think you’re all treated badly in FAANG, hoooboy, at least nobody has nearly caused deaths in the lab through negligence!
Speaking as someone who has spent the last six years of their career working on advanced physics in various technology sectors (including biotech) and then trying to make various 2D-xene materials work for semiconductors, I’ll tell you one thing:
They pay you shit and if you think you’re all treated badly in FAANG, hoooboy, at least nobody has nearly caused deaths in the lab through negligence!
> if you think you're all treated badly in FAANG
No one thinks that. Workload at some places maybe a little on the higher side but still on average monetary and toll on life wise FAANG is probably one of the best jobs.
No one thinks that. Workload at some places maybe a little on the higher side but still on average monetary and toll on life wise FAANG is probably one of the best jobs.
> Innovation happens in fields where our ideas are limited by our means to pursue them.
Citation needed. I'm pretty sure innovation is happening in all fields.
> Software is no longer such a field, our brightest minds should be going elsewhere.
Citation needed. Pretty sure innovation is happening in software too.
This post is... utterly fact-free, and really just reality-free. It literally says nothing besides "biotech excites me". The author had no need to add a bunch of false generalizations on top of that.
Citation needed. I'm pretty sure innovation is happening in all fields.
> Software is no longer such a field, our brightest minds should be going elsewhere.
Citation needed. Pretty sure innovation is happening in software too.
This post is... utterly fact-free, and really just reality-free. It literally says nothing besides "biotech excites me". The author had no need to add a bunch of false generalizations on top of that.
It is an opinion piece, not a fact piece. It isn't trying to make a factual case for the slowing pace of innovation in software, he is saying that is his impression based on his experience in the field, and then using that as a premise to explore a nugget of an idea that builds on that premise. The idea isn't "biotech excites me", the idea is "some fields are limited by the availability of new ideas and others are limited by the ability to execute their ideas; the latter are more exciting".
I think a fact-based article exploring the question of whether software really does have a slowing (or just slow) pace of ideas and innovation would be much more interesting than this article, but not every article has to be factual reporting and synthesis, some can be of the form "I believe this is how the world looks, and I draw these conclusions starting from that belief".
Personally, I relate to his premise, though I'm unsure it's true. It does seem to me that there aren't many new ideas in the industry. We seem to "just" be doing things we've been able to do for a very long time, but making them more accessible to more people, more efficient (with respect to human time while not necessarily computer time), and more scalable. We seem to me to be doing a lot of streamlining but not a huge amount of innovating.
I think a fact-based article exploring the question of whether software really does have a slowing (or just slow) pace of ideas and innovation would be much more interesting than this article, but not every article has to be factual reporting and synthesis, some can be of the form "I believe this is how the world looks, and I draw these conclusions starting from that belief".
Personally, I relate to his premise, though I'm unsure it's true. It does seem to me that there aren't many new ideas in the industry. We seem to "just" be doing things we've been able to do for a very long time, but making them more accessible to more people, more efficient (with respect to human time while not necessarily computer time), and more scalable. We seem to me to be doing a lot of streamlining but not a huge amount of innovating.
"Software is simply the encoding of human thought, and as such has an almost unbounded design space"
https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/1385928617943838721
https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/1385928617943838721
This reminds me of Harry Mulisch congratulating authors for being very, very smart in _De ontdekking van de hemel_
I don't know the context of the quote, but I don't think it's necessarily elitist.
I have a lot of non-programmer friends who sometimes say that programming must be very dry and boring. My shiny go-to example to convince them otherwise is a nice desktop planetarium app, which you can't develop without first learning how the solar system works. Once you do you can write that down in code - an executable, computing form of knowledge, a living document that allows you to tinker, refine, share, reproduce. Software truly is pretty neat as a human societal tool with a wide range of applications.
It should be for everyone. The other thing I tell them: If you've ever been in bed in the morning and planned out your steps for how to get that cup of coffee you need, designing an efficient bed-to-coffee algorithm, you've already been a a programmer.
I have a lot of non-programmer friends who sometimes say that programming must be very dry and boring. My shiny go-to example to convince them otherwise is a nice desktop planetarium app, which you can't develop without first learning how the solar system works. Once you do you can write that down in code - an executable, computing form of knowledge, a living document that allows you to tinker, refine, share, reproduce. Software truly is pretty neat as a human societal tool with a wide range of applications.
It should be for everyone. The other thing I tell them: If you've ever been in bed in the morning and planned out your steps for how to get that cup of coffee you need, designing an efficient bed-to-coffee algorithm, you've already been a a programmer.
Twitter says "This is not available to you." Was this deleted, or does Twitter just not let the public see anything at all anymore?
Twitter has about a 50% chance of telling me that every time I follow a link there. Hit f5 a few times, maybe a ctrl+f5 and you'll probably get there.
That worked. Amazing that it can be so flakey.
Assume you're on Firefox? This has been an issue with Twitter since I started following links to it on Firefox.
Crazy that they haven't fixed it yet, but that's Twitter I suppose.
Crazy that they haven't fixed it yet, but that's Twitter I suppose.
Do you want to know the real "problem"?
It takes a long time to develop biotech, test it, approve it, market it, and make money. There is also a limited market (ie the people sick with that condition, specifically in rich countries). The reason tech companies make money, grow/iterate, pay more, is because they are in a field that does not require the same oversight and moral safety obligations (maybe they should to an extent) as well as being marketable to basically everyone in rich countries.
It takes a long time to develop biotech, test it, approve it, market it, and make money. There is also a limited market (ie the people sick with that condition, specifically in rich countries). The reason tech companies make money, grow/iterate, pay more, is because they are in a field that does not require the same oversight and moral safety obligations (maybe they should to an extent) as well as being marketable to basically everyone in rich countries.
This also is pretty much why finance pays well: the correlation of employee salary to company profit is as direct as it will ever be.
True, but not just direct, it's comparatively instant. You might spend years or even a decade bringing a medication or medical device to market, but you can create many types of software in months, or see a return on investments in a short time too.
I think he's got it exactly wrong — the reason we have seen a lot of "non-tech tech" companies is that software still fundamentally kinda sucks. We have become so used to it we don't always notice, but software is a fragile nightmare to work with. It's like trying to build skyscrapers with tinkertoys, and it's a miracle we can do as much as we do. Software needs a leap; AI/ML might be the start of it, not sure yet.
why does it fundamentally suck? anything specific in mind?
Not the poster you were replying to, but I’ve come to the same conclusion and here’s my not-particularly-rigorous reasoning:
It seems to be equal parts users stuck in a local maxima of computing skill and how that enables lax software engineering standards.
When’s the last time you’ve sat down with a user who isn’t remotely interested in tech and watch them work/use a computer? Most of the population’s mental model of a computer is starkly different to the average hacker news reader. You can still hear the same complaints about how computers “don’t do what i want it to do” that i remember my parents generation saying, and they were experiencing the first waves of computerisation in their offices.
The story became that the older generation just couldn’t understand the new generation, but kids are amazing with computers because they’re growing up with them. Well, some of those kids are just as hopeless. It’s partly an education problem (hard to learn computing from a teacher who doesn’t understand it themselves), and partly because UI design trended to simplifying everything as much as possible so that users who don’t understand computing can still enjoy and use their devices. Now there’s not a great incentive to learn more than you need to just use the UI you’re given, and computing skill tends to get stuck in this local maxima.
I won’t go on about my other point in detail as it’s a perennial favourite for hacker news discussion. But hardware gets faster so quickly, but our software is so hastily thrown together that it eats up all the gains. Users don’t notice that software they’re using is crap because their mental model of computing isn’t developed enough to know what’s happening. Instead we get this casting of devices as somewhat malevolent entities (“ugh, my stupid computer keeps losing my stuff. I need to buy a new one that isn’t so dumb”)
We use to think this would be resolved with time and generational change, but it seems like there’s just a more-or-less static percentage of the population that just doesn’t get computers. (Which is completely understandable, people have different interests, it’s hard to inculcate an appreciation of something in your entire population, look at peoples relationships with mathematics)
It seems to be equal parts users stuck in a local maxima of computing skill and how that enables lax software engineering standards.
When’s the last time you’ve sat down with a user who isn’t remotely interested in tech and watch them work/use a computer? Most of the population’s mental model of a computer is starkly different to the average hacker news reader. You can still hear the same complaints about how computers “don’t do what i want it to do” that i remember my parents generation saying, and they were experiencing the first waves of computerisation in their offices.
The story became that the older generation just couldn’t understand the new generation, but kids are amazing with computers because they’re growing up with them. Well, some of those kids are just as hopeless. It’s partly an education problem (hard to learn computing from a teacher who doesn’t understand it themselves), and partly because UI design trended to simplifying everything as much as possible so that users who don’t understand computing can still enjoy and use their devices. Now there’s not a great incentive to learn more than you need to just use the UI you’re given, and computing skill tends to get stuck in this local maxima.
I won’t go on about my other point in detail as it’s a perennial favourite for hacker news discussion. But hardware gets faster so quickly, but our software is so hastily thrown together that it eats up all the gains. Users don’t notice that software they’re using is crap because their mental model of computing isn’t developed enough to know what’s happening. Instead we get this casting of devices as somewhat malevolent entities (“ugh, my stupid computer keeps losing my stuff. I need to buy a new one that isn’t so dumb”)
We use to think this would be resolved with time and generational change, but it seems like there’s just a more-or-less static percentage of the population that just doesn’t get computers. (Which is completely understandable, people have different interests, it’s hard to inculcate an appreciation of something in your entire population, look at peoples relationships with mathematics)
Ever used Kuberenetes? Hope you like writing yaml.
Ever written Javascript? Good luck doing real maths with only floats.
Ever used Electron? Hope you didn't need that 8 GB of RAM.
I could go on, but most mainstream software is one step above absolute garbage. There are isolated islands of extremely high quality tools, but they tend to be esoteric FLOSS packages that are isolated from market pressures. OpenBSD is a work of art.
Ever written Javascript? Good luck doing real maths with only floats.
Ever used Electron? Hope you didn't need that 8 GB of RAM.
I could go on, but most mainstream software is one step above absolute garbage. There are isolated islands of extremely high quality tools, but they tend to be esoteric FLOSS packages that are isolated from market pressures. OpenBSD is a work of art.
There are a lot of comments in this thread discussing biotech salaries. They're not universally true. Source: I'm the VP of data science at Recursion, a biotech company focused on drug discovery, so I manage or have visibility into hiring in the domains that most people on this site would likely be interested in.
The biotech industry (which is made up of at least three rather different verticals: tools, diagnostics, and therapeutics) is changing quite a bit today. There are certainly companies that have less of a technology or data emphasis or who are still trying to figure out the value those could bring, and those companies are far less likely to pay well in SW/DS roles. There are others that either from their inception or more recently realize the value these approaches can deliver and compensate accordingly. I personally find the new wave of biotech startups that are focused on being hybrids of experimental and computational capabilities extremely exciting (which is why I'm at one) and these are the firms where software and mathematical skill sets are most likely to be valued.
You'll probably still make more on Wall Street than you would in biotech. But you don't have to be _badly_ paid in order to work on a meaningful mission. OP is, IMO, correct that biology is entering a phase in which computational skills are a rate-limiting factor in our ability to make advances (note: not _the_ limit -- experiment is still absolutely critical), and it's a super exciting and impactful field to be in.
Shameless plug: Recursion is hiring a TON of positions in data science and machine learning, engineering, and elsewhere. Check us out: https://www.recursion.com/careers. (Contact info is in my bio.)
The biotech industry (which is made up of at least three rather different verticals: tools, diagnostics, and therapeutics) is changing quite a bit today. There are certainly companies that have less of a technology or data emphasis or who are still trying to figure out the value those could bring, and those companies are far less likely to pay well in SW/DS roles. There are others that either from their inception or more recently realize the value these approaches can deliver and compensate accordingly. I personally find the new wave of biotech startups that are focused on being hybrids of experimental and computational capabilities extremely exciting (which is why I'm at one) and these are the firms where software and mathematical skill sets are most likely to be valued.
You'll probably still make more on Wall Street than you would in biotech. But you don't have to be _badly_ paid in order to work on a meaningful mission. OP is, IMO, correct that biology is entering a phase in which computational skills are a rate-limiting factor in our ability to make advances (note: not _the_ limit -- experiment is still absolutely critical), and it's a super exciting and impactful field to be in.
Shameless plug: Recursion is hiring a TON of positions in data science and machine learning, engineering, and elsewhere. Check us out: https://www.recursion.com/careers. (Contact info is in my bio.)
No remote positions :/ That's a shame. Would have loved to apply.
One problem you see a lot in biotech, is that "bio" and "tech" tend to form separate poles of the company, and there is little cross-contamination between the two. I[0] think being on site is an important counterweight to that phenomenon. I think it's what has made us successful so far.
We've been doing a lot of remote work during covid and I have definitely noticed the decline of water-cooler solidarity. We still do hire remote engineers and data scientists, but only in cases where they are the literal top of their field.
[0] Standard disclaimers: I work at Recursion, have drunk the Kool-Aid, etc etc
We've been doing a lot of remote work during covid and I have definitely noticed the decline of water-cooler solidarity. We still do hire remote engineers and data scientists, but only in cases where they are the literal top of their field.
[0] Standard disclaimers: I work at Recursion, have drunk the Kool-Aid, etc etc
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Having worked with Yoshua, I can say your company is lucky to have him around.
Man, I am so sick of my industry being a punching bag.
I work in "Wall Street".
My firm sells things to those who want to buy them in a highly regulated marketplace with considerable governmental and self-regulatory oversight.
We do this on behalf of investors who entrust us to use their capital as fiduciaries for their, and their clients, best interests.
We solve challenging problems with cutting edge approaches involving non-trivial technical, statistical, and business considerations.
And we are not paid _poorly_ for our efforts.
Please stop pushing a strawman financial industry narrative that we've no meaningful mission to serve your industry's recruiting needs. I don't poo on biotech to source my hires.
(Of course none of this constitutes financial, or personal, advice.)
I work in "Wall Street".
My firm sells things to those who want to buy them in a highly regulated marketplace with considerable governmental and self-regulatory oversight.
We do this on behalf of investors who entrust us to use their capital as fiduciaries for their, and their clients, best interests.
We solve challenging problems with cutting edge approaches involving non-trivial technical, statistical, and business considerations.
And we are not paid _poorly_ for our efforts.
Please stop pushing a strawman financial industry narrative that we've no meaningful mission to serve your industry's recruiting needs. I don't poo on biotech to source my hires.
(Of course none of this constitutes financial, or personal, advice.)
What, exactly, is the "meaningful mission" of modern tech-driven finance firms? As you note, you are paid well for helping (typically wealthy) investors make a lot of money, and this is a challenging thing to do. But nothing in your post tells me why that's meaningful.
I understand the point of places like Fidelity or Charles Schwab, that offer the general public effective, low-cost investment vehicles. It's hard to deny that's a meaningful, socially beneficial thing to do. But when people punch at "Wall Street," they usually have in mind places like G-Research, whose only real purpose seems to be making an already rich owner richer.
I understand the point of places like Fidelity or Charles Schwab, that offer the general public effective, low-cost investment vehicles. It's hard to deny that's a meaningful, socially beneficial thing to do. But when people punch at "Wall Street," they usually have in mind places like G-Research, whose only real purpose seems to be making an already rich owner richer.
> What, exactly, is the "meaningful mission" of modern tech-driven finance firms?
Suppose that such a firm accepts money from a state (or other) pension plan. Then part of the mission of that firm is to provide a stable retirement for every participant of that particular pension.
Know anyone on a state (or other) pension?
Suppose that such a firm accepts money from a state (or other) pension plan. Then part of the mission of that firm is to provide a stable retirement for every participant of that particular pension.
Know anyone on a state (or other) pension?
Do most statistical arbitrage/high frequency trading/market making shops manage state pension money? I use these terms loosely – if you want me to be more precise I can just start naming individual firms.
Again, I take no issue with the firms that responsibly manage people's pensions, help the public access equity and bond markets, and so on. But those are not the firms that the people making demeaning comments about "Wall Street" are talking about. So I don't think that comment is responsive to the question I asked. Again, that question is, what is the "meaningful mission" of those other firms?
Again, I take no issue with the firms that responsibly manage people's pensions, help the public access equity and bond markets, and so on. But those are not the firms that the people making demeaning comments about "Wall Street" are talking about. So I don't think that comment is responsive to the question I asked. Again, that question is, what is the "meaningful mission" of those other firms?
Here's another example focusing on just market makers and the value they provide...
Many people disparage used car dealers. The used car salesperson is a trope punching bag. They offer bad prices versus what someone can get by using Craigslist or AutoTrader or something and putting in modest effort.
But those businesses serve a purpose because they allow folks to buy or sell a vehicle real darn fast relative to Craigslist or AutoTrader or something. Like, hours instead of days.
Market makers are used car dealers. They collect a spread every time they buy then sell the same car. Or when their car inventory goes up in value. They don't have perfect information, like a used car dealer, when someone is selling them a lemon so they build that risk into their quoted spreads.
The market maker's mission is be the most profitable used car dealer they can be. Unsavory? Perhaps. But they are kept in check by competition from every other used car dealer in town. Consequently, you get a reasonable price for reasonable amounts of liquidity. Just like you do when buying a first, used car one afternoon for some lucky teenager.
The other types of market participants you mentioned also accomplish useful things. I won't go into other examples nor will I field questions about any specific firm.
And, sure, everyone wants to be as profitable as they can be. That's business. Providing valuable service to customers for the highest possible profit in the face of competition isn't unique to the financial industry.
Many people disparage used car dealers. The used car salesperson is a trope punching bag. They offer bad prices versus what someone can get by using Craigslist or AutoTrader or something and putting in modest effort.
But those businesses serve a purpose because they allow folks to buy or sell a vehicle real darn fast relative to Craigslist or AutoTrader or something. Like, hours instead of days.
Market makers are used car dealers. They collect a spread every time they buy then sell the same car. Or when their car inventory goes up in value. They don't have perfect information, like a used car dealer, when someone is selling them a lemon so they build that risk into their quoted spreads.
The market maker's mission is be the most profitable used car dealer they can be. Unsavory? Perhaps. But they are kept in check by competition from every other used car dealer in town. Consequently, you get a reasonable price for reasonable amounts of liquidity. Just like you do when buying a first, used car one afternoon for some lucky teenager.
The other types of market participants you mentioned also accomplish useful things. I won't go into other examples nor will I field questions about any specific firm.
And, sure, everyone wants to be as profitable as they can be. That's business. Providing valuable service to customers for the highest possible profit in the face of competition isn't unique to the financial industry.
I was going to include market makers in my previous post, but didn't to keep things simple. I agree the benefits from them seem pretty clear, in the sense that lowering the spread and increasing liquidity helps retail investors (and maybe market stability in general). But there are a few points here that I think make a lot of people uncomfortable.
First, it's not so clear this is meaningful work. If I'm a smart college graduate and go to work in biotech, I get to save lives and cure disease (ideally). If I go to work at a market making firm, I get to ... lower the spread? I think it's quite reasonable for someone to forgo doing this because they feel it doesn't make a meaningful contribution to the world.
Second, I've watched many incredibly talented people disproportionately go work at HFT firms, and it's hard to to avoid the impression this is socially wasteful. Efficient markets are nice, but do the markets really need to be efficient on a microsecond scale? It seems like the talent sink here is unfortunate and society might be better off if some of them worked instead on, say, biotech or alternative energy sources.
I agree the the cause is obvious: finance pays more money. But it's hard to avoid thinking about solutions that reduce the profitability of HFT and don't harm market efficiency significantly, for example eliminating the subpenny rule [0]. It seems clear to me that if the current incentives result in one industry essentially monopolizing the nation's most quantitatively able workers, then those incentives might need to change.
I don't think this point was made explicit in the original post you responded to, but it lurks in the background.
Finally, I really wish you would treat other examples of market participants. Because right now you've done the easy cases, the ones that I, a total outsider, can mount a defense for. Again, it's the other ones that are interesting. And it's clear there are a ton of participants who are a) not aimed at increasing access for retail investors and b) not market makers.
[0] https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/hft_whats_broken.htm...
First, it's not so clear this is meaningful work. If I'm a smart college graduate and go to work in biotech, I get to save lives and cure disease (ideally). If I go to work at a market making firm, I get to ... lower the spread? I think it's quite reasonable for someone to forgo doing this because they feel it doesn't make a meaningful contribution to the world.
Second, I've watched many incredibly talented people disproportionately go work at HFT firms, and it's hard to to avoid the impression this is socially wasteful. Efficient markets are nice, but do the markets really need to be efficient on a microsecond scale? It seems like the talent sink here is unfortunate and society might be better off if some of them worked instead on, say, biotech or alternative energy sources.
I agree the the cause is obvious: finance pays more money. But it's hard to avoid thinking about solutions that reduce the profitability of HFT and don't harm market efficiency significantly, for example eliminating the subpenny rule [0]. It seems clear to me that if the current incentives result in one industry essentially monopolizing the nation's most quantitatively able workers, then those incentives might need to change.
I don't think this point was made explicit in the original post you responded to, but it lurks in the background.
Finally, I really wish you would treat other examples of market participants. Because right now you've done the easy cases, the ones that I, a total outsider, can mount a defense for. Again, it's the other ones that are interesting. And it's clear there are a ton of participants who are a) not aimed at increasing access for retail investors and b) not market makers.
[0] https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/hft_whats_broken.htm...
Define "meaningful work". Is it challenging? Enjoyable? Does it provide a good or service that someone wants? Can you support your dependents? Do you like the people you eat lunch with? Does it use the specialized skills that you have invested in learning? Check check check check check check.
Not sold? There are 168 hours in a week! Someone's raison d'etre need not fall into the 40 hours of the work week. For example, my job permits my spouse to pursue what she absolutely loves.
"Socially wasteful" is in the eye of the beholder. We probably have different values or philosophies. Let's just disagree.
You seem fixated on HFT. And you want more examples. Say there's some low-latency statistical arbitrage shop full of biotech luminaries that were sucked into finance only for the pay. And say they trade only to line their own pockets. And they hate all puppies and every single kitten. Real morally objectionable dirt bags. They're still (still!) trading with willing counterparties who wanted to trade that specific instrument at that specific price or per those specific terms. Every single trade requires two participants.
Hit me up by email if you want to talk more.
Not sold? There are 168 hours in a week! Someone's raison d'etre need not fall into the 40 hours of the work week. For example, my job permits my spouse to pursue what she absolutely loves.
"Socially wasteful" is in the eye of the beholder. We probably have different values or philosophies. Let's just disagree.
You seem fixated on HFT. And you want more examples. Say there's some low-latency statistical arbitrage shop full of biotech luminaries that were sucked into finance only for the pay. And say they trade only to line their own pockets. And they hate all puppies and every single kitten. Real morally objectionable dirt bags. They're still (still!) trading with willing counterparties who wanted to trade that specific instrument at that specific price or per those specific terms. Every single trade requires two participants.
Hit me up by email if you want to talk more.
There isn't one. It's the worlds biggest poker table and they just like playing cards and it's profitable and it's intellectually rewarding to think your way to being the smartest guy at the table. Sounds awesome to me (until you burn out because you're fundamentally just playing a big game of poker).
Sorry @RhysU! My intention wasn't to poo on financial careers. A lot of* what happens in finance is in fact useful and certainly technically interesting.
My point was that _if_ one's primary goal is to get the highest comp possible, it's probably better to go into finance than biotech. No bones about that; we don't pay as well. But that does not mean that biotech universally pays _badly_ for technical skills, as casual readers might assume based on reading this thread. My point was that if someone is both technically-minded and interested in the mission in biotech, it's worth taking a closer look, especially at the wave of companies from the last ten years bringing tech and biotech together.
* Not everything, I'm sure, but neither is everything in biotech!
My point was that _if_ one's primary goal is to get the highest comp possible, it's probably better to go into finance than biotech. No bones about that; we don't pay as well. But that does not mean that biotech universally pays _badly_ for technical skills, as casual readers might assume based on reading this thread. My point was that if someone is both technically-minded and interested in the mission in biotech, it's worth taking a closer look, especially at the wave of companies from the last ten years bringing tech and biotech together.
* Not everything, I'm sure, but neither is everything in biotech!
Agreed! Chasing comp for its own sake is unsatisfying. Pursue the vector aligned with what you like and with what pays well enough.
I'm a software engineer at Recursion, and Imran is telling the truth. I was on my way to posting a comment just like this when I saw this.
If you're exploring the world of AI for drug discovery, IMO, it's important not to fall for the trap of companies that just do "AI on public available data". That's just the same "the fundamental problem of software is a lack of ideas" phenomenon the article was talking about. You want to meld software and data science skills with the fundamental work of whatever industry you want to be the vanguard of.
Seriously, if you're in the market, check out Recursion. My contact is in my bio also, and I'll answer any questions Imran can't (or won't :p).
If you're exploring the world of AI for drug discovery, IMO, it's important not to fall for the trap of companies that just do "AI on public available data". That's just the same "the fundamental problem of software is a lack of ideas" phenomenon the article was talking about. You want to meld software and data science skills with the fundamental work of whatever industry you want to be the vanguard of.
Seriously, if you're in the market, check out Recursion. My contact is in my bio also, and I'll answer any questions Imran can't (or won't :p).
I’m not convinced by this - “Innovation happens in fields where our ideas are limited by our means to pursue them” - but it’s written as if it’s self-evident. Why would it be like this and what is the argument that it is? By what measure is computing stagnant today compared to the 60’s, for example?
I think it's almost a tautology: Innovation happens where... innovation needs to happen.
Which I think is fair. Innovation does also occur where it doesn't necessarily need to.
Which I think is fair. Innovation does also occur where it doesn't necessarily need to.
i think going in a field where they'll pay you plenty without noticing you barely spend time working is the play
the brightest don't spend their time & energy making others wealthy
the brightest don't spend their time & energy making others wealthy
That also has its disadvantages. Being stuck in an office with little work, but little else in the way of entertainment slowly burns you out. Having next to no work for two months wasn't as pleasant as I thought it would be.
Fields where you don't make other people wealthy aren't so rosy either. They bring their own drama to the table.
Fields where you don't make other people wealthy aren't so rosy either. They bring their own drama to the table.
The trick there is to work remotely. You can just build software, make art, do your own side-business 8hrs/day while hitting the employer's bar of "I'll keep paying this guy" and keep that income flowing.
I would like to see a government sponsored campaign on the benefits of working at home. I feel like most employers are counting the seconds until they can bring us back in? "You can All come back to the office! I bet you have been waiting for this? Marg had a baby over Covid? We increased the lux rat of our office lighting--yea! Jerry Suckup made assistant to the assistant manager, but this is on a probationary basis. Gas up the jalopy, and come in! Oh yea, we have a new facial recognition system instead of a punch clock. Those kooky tech guys?"
The benifits I see:
1. No commute. (Getting cars off the road is good for global warming?) And my sanity when I do need to go somewhere.
2. More sleep.
3. Less busy work to keep some middle manager happy.
4. Happier employee.
5. I have no clue over productivity.
negatives:
1. I guess schmoozing is important for some people. I did make most of my younger self's friends at work because we were both at the same lousy job?
2. Some people find office banter comradery important for their mental health? I used to be one of those people, but would happily give up a little socialization for more sleep, and less hrs driving.
If the government spent some tax money on a campaign to keep workers home, if the job was doable at home, I would be behind it.
I wouldn't even mind if they gave credits to employers who didn't drag their employees into a office.
Frame the promotion over Global Warming, and not employee satisfaction. We all know employees are way down on the list of what they care about, but a tax credit, and some kind of carbon rebate whatnot might keep many of us home? And less cars on the road. In my county, it seemed like everyone went out and bought a second car. Traffic is back to unbearable in the Bay Area.
The benifits I see:
1. No commute. (Getting cars off the road is good for global warming?) And my sanity when I do need to go somewhere.
2. More sleep.
3. Less busy work to keep some middle manager happy.
4. Happier employee.
5. I have no clue over productivity.
negatives:
1. I guess schmoozing is important for some people. I did make most of my younger self's friends at work because we were both at the same lousy job?
2. Some people find office banter comradery important for their mental health? I used to be one of those people, but would happily give up a little socialization for more sleep, and less hrs driving.
If the government spent some tax money on a campaign to keep workers home, if the job was doable at home, I would be behind it.
I wouldn't even mind if they gave credits to employers who didn't drag their employees into a office.
Frame the promotion over Global Warming, and not employee satisfaction. We all know employees are way down on the list of what they care about, but a tax credit, and some kind of carbon rebate whatnot might keep many of us home? And less cars on the road. In my county, it seemed like everyone went out and bought a second car. Traffic is back to unbearable in the Bay Area.
And you have zero moral qualms about this behavior at all?
Why would I? I'm employed at-will. I'm good with the arrangement. My employer is too. Win-win.
I wonder how your employer would feel if they saw the post I replied to?
If you think they would react negatively, then wouldn’t you concede that there is an element of dishonesty here?
If you think they would react negatively, then wouldn’t you concede that there is an element of dishonesty here?
If you produce [salary]$ worth of value, then it does not really matter how you produce it, right?
I'm not GP, and I'm self-employed, but I think it's fair to compensate people based on the value they create, and not how much time they spend at the office. If a guy gets his work done in half the time, and his employer is happy with the cost, then everyone gets what they want.
I'm not GP, and I'm self-employed, but I think it's fair to compensate people based on the value they create, and not how much time they spend at the office. If a guy gets his work done in half the time, and his employer is happy with the cost, then everyone gets what they want.
I am employed at-will and I have yearly written proof that my employer is happy with my work.
You are proving the conservative belief in welfare queens.
What welfare? I'm employed at-will and my performance is reviewed yearly.
You're on bigcorp welfare and you do as little work as required to not lose your benefits.
Companies pay as little as required not to lose employees or break laws. Work is a transaction, and it looks like both that person and their employer are satisfied with the arrangement.
Normally, yeah, sure. But sometimes not. Sometimes the world isn't such a shitty place. Sometimes an employer will decide to take a chance on an employee and invest in them, and pay them more than they need to. Sometimes that same employee will decide to work harder than they need to in order to achieve the goal they share with that employer.
I certainly don't run my business by paying all my staff the absolute bare minimum I need to so they can do work that is just-as-good-but-no-better than needed.
For a company reliant on innovation and driven by human capital, the dynamic you are describing seems like something that would normally come into play at a late stage of its life. Ignoring other factors, imagine how easy it would be to compete against a company that is entirely run this way and staffed by people who work like this. Literally no one there would even care that they're facing disruption.
I certainly don't run my business by paying all my staff the absolute bare minimum I need to so they can do work that is just-as-good-but-no-better than needed.
For a company reliant on innovation and driven by human capital, the dynamic you are describing seems like something that would normally come into play at a late stage of its life. Ignoring other factors, imagine how easy it would be to compete against a company that is entirely run this way and staffed by people who work like this. Literally no one there would even care that they're facing disruption.
I am employed at-will and I have yearly written proof that my employer is happy with my work.
Perhaps another way to look at this: on your tombstone it reads
They had written proof that their employer was happy with their work.My commercial software development career will hopefully not even be a footnote on my tombstone of all things :)
Use your free time to build stuff, save the money to bootstrap and when your project gains traction, leave and build your own things so that you're not making someone else wealthy.
The brightest absolutely do spend their time and energy making others wealthy (ex: I would consider most senior eng at FAANG to be bright and although they are definitely rich, they are not wealthy). I suspect that's because of the cycle of responsibilities and spending most of their incomes.
The brightest absolutely do spend their time and energy making others wealthy (ex: I would consider most senior eng at FAANG to be bright and although they are definitely rich, they are not wealthy). I suspect that's because of the cycle of responsibilities and spending most of their incomes.
The thing about FAANGs and BigCos is they have more money than they know how to spend. The majority of that headcount spend is just to capture "talent" so others don't have it.
I've seen millions of dollars-worth of software development waste as FAANG and BigCo. Nobody bats at eye. Because it's a bizarro world with no consequences. All you gotta do is not get wrapped up in it and collect checks ;)
I've seen millions of dollars-worth of software development waste as FAANG and BigCo. Nobody bats at eye. Because it's a bizarro world with no consequences. All you gotta do is not get wrapped up in it and collect checks ;)
> The majority of that headcount spend is just to capture "talent" so others don't have it.
I think people on both sides forget this. You don’t need 300 engineers to solve very many problems, but if you use 300 it means 2 other companies don’t solve it too.
And just because you’re making a ton of money working for a big company, doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is that important. It might just be to humor you. Even at small places, sometimes the established players get thrown a bone, working on something frivolous because it makes them happy, so they stick around.
I think people on both sides forget this. You don’t need 300 engineers to solve very many problems, but if you use 300 it means 2 other companies don’t solve it too.
And just because you’re making a ton of money working for a big company, doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is that important. It might just be to humor you. Even at small places, sometimes the established players get thrown a bone, working on something frivolous because it makes them happy, so they stick around.
I did that for a year or so in finance. Realised I was wasting my one life. I want to be useful.
You can be paid by the company while being useful for yourself :)
I despise leeches, though. If I'm going to be here I'm going to be useful, not leech other people's hard work for my own pleasure.
Software engineering is becoming a base layer for all fields. Meaning there will be a lot more cross disciplinary software engineers extending a wide range of companies and industries including biotech, agriculture, space, etc.
As such it isn't mutually exclusive to be a software engineer while working in a field where tech is the limit. (But even so in my opinion, software itself is still just getting its bearings)
As such it isn't mutually exclusive to be a software engineer while working in a field where tech is the limit. (But even so in my opinion, software itself is still just getting its bearings)
Every single superficial website or app released today is built on layers upon layers of incredible continuous advances in the software world. Just in the past decade the fields of cloud computing, AI/ML, data warehousing/analytics, distributed systems, real-time communication, geo syncing of data and computation, mobile/embedded development, chipsets, compilers all evolved beyond recognition.
"Ideas" were and still are largely worthless. They are absolutely not the bottleneck in software today. There are a billion implementation-level problems that are still unsolved, and there will always be new ones.
"Ideas" were and still are largely worthless. They are absolutely not the bottleneck in software today. There are a billion implementation-level problems that are still unsolved, and there will always be new ones.
Fields where tech is the limit are fields that don't care about tech. As result, working as a software or tech IC in these fields is a grind. Never again -- no thanks!
Like, I've heard senior leadership at a 'computation-focused' biotech company outright call engineers 'bad people' only to quickly correct this to 'bad at being people', which is so much better!
Like, I've heard senior leadership at a 'computation-focused' biotech company outright call engineers 'bad people' only to quickly correct this to 'bad at being people', which is so much better!
Software is still at the 4 elements stage of learning (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water).
We have capability based security as a model for having computers that don't get taken out by any flaw anywhere, but... like doctors who refused to believe that washing hands helped save lives, most programmers don't believe in it, or have never heard of it.
Computers used to be leading edge because anyone could just get a machine and start hacking away at it, with physical hardware being the only limit. Now our operating environments are about as secure as a forest during high fire season... only little spark, and poof... your house is gone.
We're about 10 years out, not because of a lack of ideas, but because of a lack of adoption of technology that works, instead of the old stuff extended way too far on a bad local maxima.
We have capability based security as a model for having computers that don't get taken out by any flaw anywhere, but... like doctors who refused to believe that washing hands helped save lives, most programmers don't believe in it, or have never heard of it.
Computers used to be leading edge because anyone could just get a machine and start hacking away at it, with physical hardware being the only limit. Now our operating environments are about as secure as a forest during high fire season... only little spark, and poof... your house is gone.
We're about 10 years out, not because of a lack of ideas, but because of a lack of adoption of technology that works, instead of the old stuff extended way too far on a bad local maxima.
This also applies so hard to grassroots community organizing. They are doing all their scaling purely through manual human strategies. Which is great, but even small amounts of tooling can help these groups to organize better and avoid burnout -- burnout and frustration kills movements, because good-feels and passion is pretty much the only thing holding people together (never money, like in a regular field)
Computer science is nowhere near its maturity as a whole. It needs more people with ethics and empathy. We've seen what has happened without that factored in; we're living in it.
Innovation as a goal sounds noble initially, but in my experience it's like chasing the wind. Faithfully doing what is already known to be good seems better for everyone. It might even be the quicker road to innovation.
Innovation as a goal sounds noble initially, but in my experience it's like chasing the wind. Faithfully doing what is already known to be good seems better for everyone. It might even be the quicker road to innovation.
To your first point, software and computer science are in their infancy. To say software has reached its limit speaks of the abilities, and imagination of the author.
As to your second point, we did have people with exceptional sense of social responsibility in software, but multiple factors, including easy/fast money, unspoken agendas, both co-opted and corrupted some, and drew in 'fresh blood' that was motivated purely by the new social cachet & easy fortunes of software work. (These are the ones Alan Kay would say are the 'pop artists' of 'pop software'.)
As to innovation and "limits", there are legion and everything from the hardware, OS, libraries, to languages are on the table for innovating, to say nothing of theoretical breakthroughs in pure comp-sci.
Software is the closest thing to magic we have in the modern world. The imaginal sky is the limit.
As to your second point, we did have people with exceptional sense of social responsibility in software, but multiple factors, including easy/fast money, unspoken agendas, both co-opted and corrupted some, and drew in 'fresh blood' that was motivated purely by the new social cachet & easy fortunes of software work. (These are the ones Alan Kay would say are the 'pop artists' of 'pop software'.)
As to innovation and "limits", there are legion and everything from the hardware, OS, libraries, to languages are on the table for innovating, to say nothing of theoretical breakthroughs in pure comp-sci.
Software is the closest thing to magic we have in the modern world. The imaginal sky is the limit.
I am interested to learn about fields where software engineers can help to bring about innovation and push those fields forward, providing some of the tech that is missing there. I would like to apply my skills in a transdisciplinary manner and work on projects that are not just B2B SaaS products.
One option is research software engineering, where SWEs team up with researchers to produce better code for models and simulations. Are there any research fields where synthesis of domain knowledge, programming skills, and computational thinking could bring great benefits?
One option is research software engineering, where SWEs team up with researchers to produce better code for models and simulations. Are there any research fields where synthesis of domain knowledge, programming skills, and computational thinking could bring great benefits?
You could become a scientific programmer.
Fwiw, a vast majority of “scientific programmer” roles I’ve seen are more so looking for a “Scientist who can program”.
Biotech is one, we are still nowhere near close to understanding the secrets of the human body, there remains lots of incurable conditions, etc.
I think the speed at which they were able to develop mrna vaccines just shows how far along we've come, but also how much more we have to go. Things like protein folding at deepmind definitely requires all these things you mention.
I think the speed at which they were able to develop mrna vaccines just shows how far along we've come, but also how much more we have to go. Things like protein folding at deepmind definitely requires all these things you mention.
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Mechanical engineering is one. The problem is gaining buy-in from the old guard that your newfangled tech will make their lives easier, not harder. To do so, you might need to get a mechanical engineering degree and work as one for a few years. Reminds me of how FarmLogs was started by someone who grew up on a farm. Ultimately the block is communication/persuasion, not technical though.
Mech e problems are more regulatory and data driven. Lack of testing data and consensus amongst experts are what good back innovation. Mechanical stuff kills people, even if it’s has software people blame the gun not the bad software
Drugs/medicine (both research and manufacturing). The pockets of potential pharma clients are immensely deep while the fields are largely dominated by haphazard taped-together tools consisting of paper, excel, and visualbasic, handled by outsourced contractors and constrained IT departments. If you can shave off some time to get drugs to market using modern technology you will enjoy financial success.
I imagine that technology in any kind of manufacturing or mining field is going to be similar or predominately dominated by one or two big players that haven’t faced an innovative competitor in decades.
I imagine that technology in any kind of manufacturing or mining field is going to be similar or predominately dominated by one or two big players that haven’t faced an innovative competitor in decades.
> the fields are largely dominated by haphazard taped-together tools consisting of paper, excel, and visualbasic, handled by outsourced contractors and constrained IT departments.
Ditto for Wall Street. The “innovation” tends to sit on top of woefully outdated systems rather than replace them.
Ditto for Wall Street. The “innovation” tends to sit on top of woefully outdated systems rather than replace them.
What a horrible article - the tech startup world is booming and ML, amongst other things, will create vast opportunities. This is the same drek I heard back in the early 2000s after the dot com bust. Literally heard people say, "I think all the great ideas in tech have already happened."
Most of the time when someone is saying something that amounts to "I can't imagine what else we could make", it's a failure of their imagination that's the problem.
Most of the time when someone is saying something that amounts to "I can't imagine what else we could make", it's a failure of their imagination that's the problem.
This seems to be largely a matter of taste?
A field where ideas are the limits can be great for somebody who wants their success to be driven and measured by ... their ideas?
Sure, it can be frustrating to be banging your head against the same wall as everybody else, but there are people that thrive in such a setting. The most extreme example might be pure mathematicians.
Sure, it can be frustrating to be banging your head against the same wall as everybody else, but there are people that thrive in such a setting. The most extreme example might be pure mathematicians.
Wife is a PhD Animal Geneticist, but works as government inspector on slaughterhouses. Makes 3-4 times the money her research colleagues do.
I'm not even sure what to think of it, honestly.
I'm not even sure what to think of it, honestly.
In every way I think about it, this difference in salary seems justified. I can't imagine inspecting slaughterhouses is very fun or rewarding, but it's super important for society.
> I can't imagine inspecting slaughterhouses is very fun or rewarding, but it's super important for society.
But I can think of all sorts of jobs that are more important to society than working on some random doomed-to-fail SaaS that won't pay remotely near that.
But I can think of all sorts of jobs that are more important to society than working on some random doomed-to-fail SaaS that won't pay remotely near that.
research is a sporadic discipline. A top tier researcher working on a choice problem with relatively predictable returns ( or at least the perception of predictability ) will make substantially more than someone working on a problem of debatable business value or with lower odds of success.
In the case of research positions, the funding situation has oversaturated the market in most entry level positions - turning negotiation and career advancement into a trial by fire.
In the case of research positions, the funding situation has oversaturated the market in most entry level positions - turning negotiation and career advancement into a trial by fire.
> Biotechnology sounds to me much like computing in the 60’s.
One thing I've always wondered about biotech... I imagine there are many non-obvious correlations and interactions in medicine, which would be easily detected using nothing more advanced than Excel-spreadsheet level data analysis.
Making up an example: people with a certain DNA trait/allele who also have a diet with a high amount of XYZ tend to not develop disease ABC as frequently as most people. Even if we don't know the pharmacological reason why that is, it would still massively benefit lots of people, right?
So it always seems to me like tech from 2007 was ready to tackle this problem. Dump in a bunch of anonymized data, find correlations, repeat.
But I feel like I never hear anything about this type of work. Is it happening, but not publicized much? Is it actually not as simple as it sounds? Does nature simply not work in this way?
Even if 95% of diseases are just "bad luck", I assume that other 5% is made up of environmental factors we don't yet understand, but could easily learn using well-known data processing techniques?
One thing I've always wondered about biotech... I imagine there are many non-obvious correlations and interactions in medicine, which would be easily detected using nothing more advanced than Excel-spreadsheet level data analysis.
Making up an example: people with a certain DNA trait/allele who also have a diet with a high amount of XYZ tend to not develop disease ABC as frequently as most people. Even if we don't know the pharmacological reason why that is, it would still massively benefit lots of people, right?
So it always seems to me like tech from 2007 was ready to tackle this problem. Dump in a bunch of anonymized data, find correlations, repeat.
But I feel like I never hear anything about this type of work. Is it happening, but not publicized much? Is it actually not as simple as it sounds? Does nature simply not work in this way?
Even if 95% of diseases are just "bad luck", I assume that other 5% is made up of environmental factors we don't yet understand, but could easily learn using well-known data processing techniques?
I've found myself thinking the same. Maybe researchers don't have the data and/or the platform? Not sure who records what they eat, and if they do they don't share it?
This work has infact been happening for decades. You are right that a lot of bioinformatics is analysis of tabular data using statistical models.
This has been going on for decades, it's called GWAS [1] and it has had a few successes but basically hasn't worked as well as everyone hoped it would in the 90s. The reason it doesn't work that well is that the human genome has ~3 billion letters and human physiology is complex. So trying to establish stastitically significant correlations between genome variations and human physiology is hard and requires more than Excel. In fact, the computational tools that have been applied to this are incredibly sophisticated and are not the limiting factor. The limiting factor is that you probably need millions or billions of genomes to make it work, and we don't have that yet. Also people are beginning to realize that many disease-relevant traits are caused by rare variants (rather than obvious statistically significant correlations) which are quite hard to detect this way.
So... anyway you're right that this is a natural way to approach the question of understanding the genetic basis of disease and physiology. But it's been beaten to death and found to drive fewer insights than were hoped
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome-wide_association_study
So... anyway you're right that this is a natural way to approach the question of understanding the genetic basis of disease and physiology. But it's been beaten to death and found to drive fewer insights than were hoped
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome-wide_association_study
Lasso (L2 regularised) regression was actually invented to solve these kinds of problems. To the best of my knowledge, this has not yet appeared in Excel.
As other commenters have mentioned, it is common practice to use such an approach to find genes that are associated with a disease (GWAS).
But finding a correlated gene is only the first step. One issue is that a single protein can participate in hundreds of seemingly unrelated chemical reactions throughout the body depending on the cell type and environment. So simply tweaking the genes expression will have many unintended consequences.
For instance, each cell is constantly maintaining a baffling complex balance between growing and dying. Any external perturbation has a good chance of either killing the cell or causing cancer.
But finding a correlated gene is only the first step. One issue is that a single protein can participate in hundreds of seemingly unrelated chemical reactions throughout the body depending on the cell type and environment. So simply tweaking the genes expression will have many unintended consequences.
For instance, each cell is constantly maintaining a baffling complex balance between growing and dying. Any external perturbation has a good chance of either killing the cell or causing cancer.
The sentiment is only half right.
The important part is “and there is promising tech on the horizon”
I think trying to get a startup based on space travel at relativistic fields would be pretty difficult.
Steve Jobs was a master of this. Seeing promising tech trends that were just about ready, and putting them together at just the right time to make innovations that were world changing.
The important part is “and there is promising tech on the horizon”
I think trying to get a startup based on space travel at relativistic fields would be pretty difficult.
Steve Jobs was a master of this. Seeing promising tech trends that were just about ready, and putting them together at just the right time to make innovations that were world changing.
> Innovation happens in fields where our ideas are limited by our means to pursue them. Software is no longer such a field, our brightest minds should be going elsewhere.
I feel like the author has an overly one-dimensional definition of both innovation and what it means for someone to be one of "our brightest minds".
There are two different goods and two different talents at play here. The first is taking an idea that already has been had and making it possible. The second is inventing new ideas. Both are goods, but each requires very different talents.
Biotechnology desperately needs people who, given a great idea, can break technological barriers and enable it. If we accept that software is bottlenecked by ideas, then software desperately needs people who can radically change paradigms. "Our greatest minds" consist of both types of people.
I feel like the author has an overly one-dimensional definition of both innovation and what it means for someone to be one of "our brightest minds".
There are two different goods and two different talents at play here. The first is taking an idea that already has been had and making it possible. The second is inventing new ideas. Both are goods, but each requires very different talents.
Biotechnology desperately needs people who, given a great idea, can break technological barriers and enable it. If we accept that software is bottlenecked by ideas, then software desperately needs people who can radically change paradigms. "Our greatest minds" consist of both types of people.
I've always imagine software is so successful as well, because of comparatively low capital costs needed to make something useful.
Why is there no innovation in healthcare?
Because better technology won't get the entrepreneur a satisfying reward.
Because better technology won't get the entrepreneur a satisfying reward.
Lots of innovation but things like clinical trials are very expensive. How could we get safe medical progress with less expenses?
Regulation has a way of keeping out innovative founders who would rather add value in newer, unregulated fields.
Very costly and lots of regulations, big consequences for failing. If a SaaS product has a bug, worst case scenario, someone loses money, if someone messes up in healthcare, a person might die.
Because you can literally make millions of more guaranteed dollars if you just go work at Facebook or Google in easier problems serving ads.
No reason to innovate insurance pays the same regardless
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Fields where tech is not at least seen as a key differentiator can be very frustrating. Expect to work in a culture where basic best practices aren’t used or even known. Expect decision makers not to understand how good software can speed up or empower research, and allocate resources accordingly. Expect salary and career growth to reflect that you are viewed as a commodity.
Your enjoyment of it hinges on whether you can be happy collecting a paycheck doing the bare minimum and satisfying your tech itch outside of work (FOSS, side hustles). For some, that is perfectly acceptable or even ideal, especially if you can get away with working fully remote.
Your enjoyment of it hinges on whether you can be happy collecting a paycheck doing the bare minimum and satisfying your tech itch outside of work (FOSS, side hustles). For some, that is perfectly acceptable or even ideal, especially if you can get away with working fully remote.
Hmm, the richest country in the world just failed to build an app where you can schedule appointments. Tech might be easy for some people, but there is still a lot of room for innovation in this field.
True of any group in any industry chasing the bottom dollar and/or managed by bureaucracy.
Depends what you optimise for I guess, maybe fine if you are looking for novel problems or starting a startup, but in general with regards to your career, I believe Patio11’s point on this is more accurate: you want to be part of the profit center [https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...]
Ah but this is only true for people who’s competitive advantage is technology!
For someone who is relatively better at ideating, I would argue the opposite is true.
For someone who is relatively better at ideating, I would argue the opposite is true.
biotech != computing
There are some important differences that are often overlooked by those coming from the world of computing...
There are some important differences that are often overlooked by those coming from the world of computing...
Being in a field (or startup) where tech is not the limit is super frustrating.
Some hates being a commodity, others hates not being a commodity. Plenty of people love those boring jobs since they are easy to perform, you know what you have to do and you know you can do it. And since you are just a cog in a big machine nobody has their eyes on you since you aren't special in any way, if you quit they can go out and hire another one like you right now.
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How about being in a field where you are paid enough to live.
Most innovation happens these days in the gaps between disciplines. Biology||Chemistry -> Biochemistry. Whole new fusion disciplines emerge.
> Software is no longer such a field, our brightest minds should be going elsewhere.
I thought this in the 1980s
I thought this in the 1980s
I've always loved science. I wish I could switch to biotech, but that would mean basically starting over.
I'm beginning the process of starting over, not in biotech, but a different scientific/engineering field. I will inevitably earn less than I could in the long run, but from my early research it likely won't be too bad. Worst case I figure I can manage to run back to software.
The caveat ofc, is that I'm still young with no ties.
The caveat ofc, is that I'm still young with no ties.
That is not a new thought.
Chomsky was talking about this some 15 years ago.
Chomsky was talking about this some 15 years ago.
AI and simulation are absolutely HPC-bottlenecked.
Couple of things to throw out there:
1) If you are able to bring a major drug to market 3 months earlier, it's worth billions. Hence the continued interest in computational approaches.
2) Salaries in the pharma/biotech biz are set nationally. Yeah, there are variations by geography, but less than one would expect. Thus, a PhD with x years can look up the salary range per region, etc.
3) The data is confusing and the error range(s) are unknown. So, many/most of the models are retrospective rather than prospective and if the initial guess at the biological target or model fails, everything else is a waste of time. Google for all of the failures re: Alzheimers.
3b) As we can't test on humans (at least not ethically), we're totally dependent on animal models being good predictors of human behaviour. But, while chimps are like 98% similar to humans, the difference has resulted in catastrophic failures in Phase 1 testing. Diseases by the score have been cured in mice...
4) Computational modelling occurs at the start of the process, which is the most efficient. I think they had a sequence for the mRNA vaccine a few days after the Chinese published the data. Getting it made, stable and deliverable is where the time was consumed. And then the various clinical trials are significant costs in time and money. Hard to trust a model for a new class of disease or mechanism.
5) Computational methodology has been (over)sold since the 60's. Yeah, there have been successes but they've been way fewer than hoped and people have grown rather jaded when presented with the latest breakthrough. ML/AI isn't really new as it was studied in the 90's, but there's way more data. See (3) above.
6) The crystal doesn't always form. The reaction yields brown oil rather than white powder, or doesn't scale. Chemistry is messy. And there's a lot of material design problems that have not been amenable to modelling. There are new ways of gathering information (CryoEM), but we still need more/better.
7) We need newer software and better parameterization. Both of these trace back to academic work on Vaxen, maybe SGI's. Visualization software is probably the most valuable tool right now, with broad acceptance in the research stage.
7b) Physics might bite us in the ass. MD software, for example, tries to model explicit protein, ligand and solvent atoms/molecules. Even given revised software and parameterization, entropy or chaos might prevent accurate numbers or what we can calculate might not be pertinent.
I could go on (and on), but I wanted to leave you with an upside... If anybody DOES deliver the goods, they'll be bloody heroes. Fame, fortune, the whole gig - like CRISPR and the other advances that have occurred. So, if you and your buddies are smart and dedicated, it'll beat the snot out of selling ads on handhelds in terms of making a difference.
1) If you are able to bring a major drug to market 3 months earlier, it's worth billions. Hence the continued interest in computational approaches.
2) Salaries in the pharma/biotech biz are set nationally. Yeah, there are variations by geography, but less than one would expect. Thus, a PhD with x years can look up the salary range per region, etc.
3) The data is confusing and the error range(s) are unknown. So, many/most of the models are retrospective rather than prospective and if the initial guess at the biological target or model fails, everything else is a waste of time. Google for all of the failures re: Alzheimers.
3b) As we can't test on humans (at least not ethically), we're totally dependent on animal models being good predictors of human behaviour. But, while chimps are like 98% similar to humans, the difference has resulted in catastrophic failures in Phase 1 testing. Diseases by the score have been cured in mice...
4) Computational modelling occurs at the start of the process, which is the most efficient. I think they had a sequence for the mRNA vaccine a few days after the Chinese published the data. Getting it made, stable and deliverable is where the time was consumed. And then the various clinical trials are significant costs in time and money. Hard to trust a model for a new class of disease or mechanism.
5) Computational methodology has been (over)sold since the 60's. Yeah, there have been successes but they've been way fewer than hoped and people have grown rather jaded when presented with the latest breakthrough. ML/AI isn't really new as it was studied in the 90's, but there's way more data. See (3) above.
6) The crystal doesn't always form. The reaction yields brown oil rather than white powder, or doesn't scale. Chemistry is messy. And there's a lot of material design problems that have not been amenable to modelling. There are new ways of gathering information (CryoEM), but we still need more/better.
7) We need newer software and better parameterization. Both of these trace back to academic work on Vaxen, maybe SGI's. Visualization software is probably the most valuable tool right now, with broad acceptance in the research stage.
7b) Physics might bite us in the ass. MD software, for example, tries to model explicit protein, ligand and solvent atoms/molecules. Even given revised software and parameterization, entropy or chaos might prevent accurate numbers or what we can calculate might not be pertinent.
I could go on (and on), but I wanted to leave you with an upside... If anybody DOES deliver the goods, they'll be bloody heroes. Fame, fortune, the whole gig - like CRISPR and the other advances that have occurred. So, if you and your buddies are smart and dedicated, it'll beat the snot out of selling ads on handhelds in terms of making a difference.
Worst pay, top heavy salaries.
When a phd makes 80k a year and a “ML/AI” data scientist is lucky to make 100k you won’t find any progress like software
They need to cut the top heavy executive bloat, respect the mid tier with better pay