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Location: San Francisco Full-time/Part-Time: Part-Time Remote: OK Technologies: Python, R, Machine Learning, Deep Learning Email: [email protected]

I am a PHD with 8 years of work experience, looking to transition in to ML. Worked at a semiconductor startup for 6 years before.

If you are a startup looking for a part-time data scientist or ML engineer, I would love to talk to you. You will get an experienced engineer working nearly for free, and I will get real-world ML experience. It is a win-win.

Would you be open to have a brief conversation on the phone for advice? My email is [email protected].

Hi, I am in a similar boat, and would love to network with you either in person or online.

I have a PhD in EE, working in semiconductors. I have done a couple of MOOC specializations on Coursera, and am trying get some data science projects on my resume. Also trying do some Kernels / Scripts on Kaggle to build up a basic portfolio.

Great reply. Just out of curiosity, did you end up giving your semiconductor job before joining the start up with a data scientist title ?

I am deep into semiconductors, and am facing the dilemma of giving up my expertise so far, to join a startup as an entry level engineer.

I have done a couple of MOOC specializations and am trying to find projects within my industry to gain some credibility. Also trying to stay active on Kaggle to build some basic data analysis portfolio.

A few years ago, I spent on some time on spinning this issue around and giving employees a way to request public validation of their contributions from their employers. Sort of asking your manager to give you a public endorsement of your contributions every six months or so. I talked to a few managers and every one said companies wouldn't accept such a thing.

Any novel thoughts on how to get around that obstacle ?

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! My goal is to be able to build at least the initial prototypes for complex web / mobile applications, so that I can test out some of our ideas. I did this in the past with various content management systems, but I feel that they are sometimes not flexible enough and come with a lot of general purpose features that are not necessary for my application. Currently I am trying to build an education website for children with illustrated books, repetitive exercises etc., that's very easy to navigate and can keep track of progress of each student, encourage them to learn more etc.

My wife had to deal with many such cases when they were hiring contractors in their group. A few simple checks that could be useful:

1. Request to have some date of birth, graduation date etc on the CV. It's by no means fool proof, but it at least prevents a 23 year old passing a person with 10 years of work experience.

2. Replace phone interviews with Skype interviews. She says many times they can actually see the candidates googling for answers and reading the top most result. Of course, they never hire such a candidate.

3. Maintain a company-wide data-base of who is hired/interviewed from which consultancy and if the there were any red flags. This will help other groups in a big company. Since there is a written record, people also tend not to interview from the same bad company again and again and wasting everyone's time.

Thanks brudgers ! Is it okay to ask for the stock option agreement before joining the company ?

Thanks for your replies everyone ! One of my concerns was that CEO has been putting in all the money so far, so the valuation of the company is questionable.

Only comparison I could make was with another competitor in the same area, which is valued about twice of this company. So, the valuation doesn't look too arbitrary.

The good thing is that the CEO has been the CEO of another big company for >10 years. So he is capable of making this company a success. This company has been around for 5 years and has some physical products out there, so the chance of it going belly up over a short period is relatively low.

They are offering a salary that slightly exceeds that job current job including bonus/401K etc. and the vesting period for the options is 3 years with 1/3rd of the options vesting each year.

The CEO wants to make the company profitable and keep it private if possible. He said I could sell the options back to the company once they vest. He said he just converted somebody's options to company's stock once they vested. I am not sure if I can get real cash for the options though, if the company is still private and not seeking funding.

The offer letter says vesting period, but it doesn't give details regarding what happens if the company gets acquired before my options vest.

Is it okay to ask for the options agreement, before joining the company ?

I agree, putting links back to your homepage helps, and these days it shows up as the first result with my name. But still, I want the other results to be relevant: such as my papers, any press we have got etc., not some random product I have tried long time ago and never even liked it.