> There is a bit of a market for compiler/ML cross overs ATM (at MS, Facebook, and Google at least). But you need at least a PhD or 10+ years of experience.

Until a few months ago I lead part of the XLA team at Google, working on ML compilers for CPU/GPU.

Most of us didn't have 10+ years of experience in compilers when we started on the team. I know one of us had a PhD in compilers. Possibly others did too, I'm not sure; this goes to show how unimportant the PhD in compilers / PhD at all was. I had no experience in compilers before I joined (not as the lead).

We're unusual, but I want to demonstrate that you really can get a good job working on compilers without a PhD or 10+ years of experience.

Note that I didn’t say a PhD or 10 years experience in compilers, it could be ML or some other related area. There really isn’t such a thing as a PhD in compilers, and even in the SIGPLAN area compiler specialized PhDs are rare (formal verification is much more common).

A PhD can get your foot in the door (showing mastery via the research you’ve done vs work experience). And then either/or is very useful in even knowing about and being recommended for these jobs (HR is generally not very useful in hiring).

Iirc none of us had any ML experience. :)

Noted. It is a bit ironic since a common complaint/frustration among PL people (mostly with PhDs) working at google is that they have to work on ads...

Please contact me. Email in profile.

PL is short for... Programming language?

yep. PL is definitely not equal to compiler. As in academic, PL is closer to theoretic computer science, especially computing theory. But in rest of the field, most of the time they're interchangeable.

Compiler comes under PL (if you want to publish a compiler paper, PLDI is the place to do that). PL is actually a very broad designation, and there are plenty of non-theory oriented PL researchers.

Yes.