T-Shaped People and Academia

Re:T-Shaped People and Academia by RhysU on Sunday January 09, 2022 @07:07AM (#29862555)

Speaking as an applied research manager in industry, I don't want to hire great academic students that cannot also be reasonably successful in delivering on these non-academic tasks.

Sure, for example, it's a waste to have a newly minted PhD set up CI systems. However, it's more of a waste to have them blocked waiting on someone else and then beholden to someone else every time there's an issue.

Researchers that can drop into the technology stack are great productivity multipliers for themselves and for their peers.

Academic types do their students a disservice when neglecting the development of such skills. Not everyone lands a professorship.

Also, didn't a bunch of these ML folks get undergrad CS degrees? Why should they be unable to do undergrad CS tasks?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:T-Shaped People and Academia by throwawaygh on Sunday January 09, 2022 @10:56AM (#29864345)

I think you've lost the plot. The author is talking about hiring people who already know how to do these things!

This isn't about skills development. It's about using people who already have these skills as engineering support labor for the research group while paying then 1/2 to 1/5th of what they'd make in industry doing equivalent work (that, again, they already know how to do!)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:T-Shaped People and Academia by RhysU on Sunday January 09, 2022 @11:24AM (#29864642)

I am talking about the complement of the plot.

I am saying that every student should be doing these tasks. The students without these skills should be learning them too.

Then no one is being taken advantage of. Then all of the students are more marketable. These skills are useful to academics too: successful junior faculty will one day need to stand up their own labs with their technical skills.

[ Parent | on HN ]