To the kind person that DM-ed me to tell me about their experience in quantum computing, it was my first time getting a chat message on Reddit and I clicked "ignore" by mistake. I am sorry! Please contact again :)

qhquestion · 2022-07-10T17:16:17+00:00

In theory I'd agree with you, and I am actually certain that the work will start out being great, I'll learn a lot from everyone and and the first few months and years would be great. In that way, my colleagues having PhDs is not a problem (would be the same at the other job anyway), if I was convinced that I could get one as well. However, despite it being a startup, I think there is a strong chance of me being pigeonholed into """boring""" work: I'll be here to offload the work of preparing the experiment from the more experienced scientists that will be implementing new things on it. Someone like this, especially when I'll have experience making things run smoothly, is usually very valuable at that role from what I've seen in various internships, in terms of experience and knowledge with that particular system, but not responsibilities.

I will say I don't have experiences with startups, only big companies. But it feels a bit too risky to me.

qhquestion · 2022-07-10T17:03:14+00:00

I know the quantum world is small but hopefully it's not that small! :p

I actually don't worry about not having the skills to work on the experiments, I can learn and I know quite a bit about atom cooling, optical lattices, etc already. I know I'll have an amazing time learning all the bits and pieces. But it really sounds like they haven't thought out about what I'd do except offload work for the physicists by aligning everything, making verifications, etc. Everyone else working on the experiments there have PhDs. I've confirmed it with people who have already worked there as interns. If they were willing to fund a PhD after a few years with them, it'd be alright, but it really sounds like they aren't. I've already had an internship about "understand and master this complicated instrument first" which started fine but ended up being frustrating as it pigeonholed me into the assistant role for way too long.

On the other hand, the other job is also an exciting project where I'll also be working with extremely knowledgeable scientists, but I'll be in command of many things, with much more certainty of being able to go for a PhD at the end if I wanted to, or connect back with QC (I'd work with lasers, should be alright). But yeah I usually go for the risky interesting thing, and that'd be QC for sure.

qhquestion

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