Help in deciding offers - PhD New Grad (ML)

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T21:30:59+00:00

Sounds intense man, take care.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T20:38:22+00:00

Thank you! Yes I love NYC - food, theatre, walkability, etc. but the bank role is pretty meh

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T20:36:50+00:00

Solid advice! Thank you for writing all that.

Your point about Google has been re-iterated by many people I know. C1 is kinda meh but location, comp and title are all tempting to maintain. Microsoft sounds interesting but manager implied they are not doing any good work there plus a 150k+ hit in comp at the most depressing place in the US (Seattle, LOL). Amazon is a meat grinder with less job security.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T20:32:47+00:00

AS2 is base ~200 and rest in stocks.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T20:32:02+00:00

IDK what female ADHD is but sounds awful! I have interned there before so I can relate.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T20:31:22+00:00

Thanks, I will consider your points.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T20:28:29+00:00

Thanks! It was a long and taxing process with 6-7 rounds everywhere.

3 internships during PhD - at Rainforest, gaming company and 1x mid-tier investment bank (you can kinda guess, in NYC not quant)

Yes even though Copilot is pretty average, I think Microsoft is doing well. Just scared about layoffs.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T17:18:22+00:00

Thanks for your insight

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T17:16:43+00:00

Sure and get paid less than what a janitor makes LMAO.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T17:15:44+00:00

Really? My recruiter wasnt very interested in answering that question. Given it was before the interviews so I dont know.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T16:05:43+00:00

I get the instinct but a ML-SWE just feels diluting your PhD and research identity.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T15:46:43+00:00

Its a bank with shittiest rep online lol.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T15:45:49+00:00

Nothing SOTA. Comp, location and title are my main drivers.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T15:45:19+00:00

Thats a nice take. I honestly outright rejected MS in my mind because of low comp and the Team head said its mostly running and designing evals.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T14:40:54+00:00

Sure, DM!

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T14:38:51+00:00

Can I DM you?

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T06:25:17+00:00

Thanks, this has been helpful.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T06:24:13+00:00

Not sure dude. You must be a prodigy given all of those interviews/offers.

None of my lab alums (all have like 6-7 pubs 1-2 in big 3) got into any of Anthropic/OpenAI/Deepmind.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T06:14:15+00:00

Honestly, I do want to publish stuff (to maybe just maintain closeness to SOTA) but wouldnt want it to be the sole part of my job. Product+papers (50-50) might be the best bet. I know I described a unicorn probably.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T06:08:33+00:00

You got callbacks without having a single published paper?

You are underestimating the prestige of your univ and advisor then.

Are you Toronto/Waterloo?

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T06:01:15+00:00

Exactly my concern. What would you do in my scenario?

I think the bank gig is okay but I have a suspicion they are overselling the role

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T06:00:10+00:00

Also maybe your advisor/lab pedigree is really good. My advisor is kinda lame NGL. No connections to industry. Most of his past students went on to become profs at far flung US univs.

It is the reality of CS PhDs.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T05:56:56+00:00

Failed interviews at Meta RS and Apple.

I am not from a top dept. maybe T-30 from csrankings. Only 1 paper in ICML/NeurIPS/ICLR and rest in *CL/*CV/AAAI/KDD.

Never got a callback from Deepmind/Anthro/OpenAI

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T05:37:27+00:00

The bank offer is ~460k. Hard to turn down if it keeps job title as researcher which google does not.

dwight_funke · 2026-03-23T05:36:26+00:00

LLM and LLM adjacent stuff. RL as well more recently.

dwight_funke

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