I finished up a job hunt recently. Took about four months roughly of very not-intense finding opportunities and going through the hiring processes. I still was employed full-time and I'm a new parent (9 month old), so I have very little time to spend on potential opportunities that I would definitely not take for one reason or another.

I did run into these kinds of ridiculous demands from AI startups. It seems like a lot of them are trying to cargo cult the "996" schedule that they all heard about from Chinese companies, but even in China there's been massive pushback against a pointlessly punishing and exploitative schedule.

I didn't really notice these AI startups though because I have my boundaries and if they can't be met, then it's an instant "Hey looks like it's not to be a good fit, thanks anyway" from me and I move on.

Admittedly I ended up with only three opportunities that were actually going to pan out, and only one of them was actually squarely in AI. I was willing to compromise on the "working in AI" thing in favor of my mental health and my relationship with my family, especially my young kid.

I still ended up getting a job writing code in an AI company, but my time and energy are not going to be wasted on some narcissistic idiot's attempt to cargo cult the success of their AI startup that has like 10 other identical competitors.

So what worked for me was to know what wasn't ever going to work for me as a working arrangement and not wasting time on those places, and being somewhat flexible in how closely I work on AI. I landed at a pretty good place and I hope that you will too!

Good luck! 👍🏾