I'm a software engineer, presently unemployed, and planning to start my next job search soon. Here's my resume: http://resume.antonpaqu.in
Short version: I'm a backend/infra/MLOps dev. My experience is mostly python, but I'm comfortable with a variety of languages and tools. I'd like to get a job soon, ideally at an alignment-focused AI lab. I can work remotely or commute from San Francisco. It's unlikely that I relocate, but there is at least one manifolder I'd move to work with.
This market resolves to the earliest-dated response naming the specific company that I end up working for, after 1 month of continuous employment at that company.
I'll be starting applications soon, and will do my best to update the status of things in the comments. I'll try to answer whatever questions in the comments.
This is an application! If you are hiring programmers and are on manifold, I think it's likely that I'd like to hear from you. (Or if you want to talk about anything else -- I've only just moved San Francisco and don't know many people here)
On top of whatever mana you can earn trading, I'll commit to bonus rewards of at least $10, payable via venmo or zelle or converted to mana, split amongst whoever I think was most responsible for helping me find the job I end up taking. I may bump the reward pool up to $1000, depending on how helpful Manifold ends up being. Links, referrals, resume critique, anything is appreciated. Let me know if you'd like to take an action predicated on receiving some reward for it.
1,000๐ Top traders
| # | Name | Total profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | แน222 | |
| 2 | แน21 | |
| 3 | แน15 | |
| 4 | แน10 | |
| 5 | แน3 |
People are also trading
I'm employed! And slowly selling all my AI positions to avoid leaking info, though it hurts given how wrong the market is for some of them.
Bonus payout time! I promised to pay out $100 in mana or dollars. I've calculated based on:
25% to Austin for recommending a company that I applied to, even if it didn't work out
25% to Alice for being the first to bid on Anthropic
20% distributed weighted by number of comments
30% based on profits, for making the market more accurate
Totals:
@Austin 3818
@Alice 3173
@firstuserhere 1422
@Sinclair 511
@AdamJones 245
@MichaelWheatley 211
@Odoacre 211
@Undox 211
@TimP 199
Let me know if you'd like venmo, or a managram, or mana-to-charity, or something else. Comments here or via discord (@citrinitae). If you'd prefer some kind of in-person delivery, I'm in San Francisco and I'm planning to attend manifest.
@citrinitas congrats on the job! it's been awesome to see how this market evolved. I'll take a managram as well, and dw, I'll try my best to correct those AI markets :)
Update: I've accepted the offer at Anthropic, starting 25 July.
This market should resolve on 25 August, if nothing out of distribution happens in my first month, and I'll pay out my bonus bounty at that point as well. Thank you to all bettors for helping to calibrate my anticipations!
And if anyone is stumbling across this, I hope the comments form a log of my experience that will help you as well. Feel free to ask if you're curious about what it was like.
Anthropic: got an email to schedule "a short chat with leadership" which I think means I'll get an offer.
๐ ๐ ๐
Closing this market for dynamic parimutuel reasons. I'm probably going to accept an offer if I get one, but nothing is certain yet. I'll re-open if something changes that would make taking the job much less likely.
Hello @citrinitas this is an incredibly cheeky question, and a flat out NO is fine. I am early in the pipeline and wondered if you can give some insight in how to best prepare for the various interviews.
Focusing on the coding side: As someone who is not "Python native", but certainly not a stranger, I would probably devote a % of time into becoming more fluent/fast with Python. And another % of time to "leetcoding" with Python and perhaps another % anticipating what ML subsystems they might use as examples and thinking about those. Is this reasonable and is there anything else you would do? Would you weight the 3 categories equally?
If I get as far as fit, I would probably read a lot about EA work then decide what my personal views are, then give that honestly, rather than saying "what I reckon they want to here" which would be bad, and also they could probably see though that.
@Undox if you're already comfortable with leetcoding in another language, I don't think there would be much to gain from leetcoding in python. Algorithms are transferable, and In my experience most companies tend to prefer "engineering" questions anyway. In those you would benefit from knowing common libraries, and having a good sense of how to do data structures + program organization in python.
The position I interviewed for did not stress ML knowledge, so I don't know what they ask, but I wouldn't share if I did know. They seem to be running a lot of in-house research, which means the Claude training system will have a lot of non-public tricks. For researchers, I'd expect them to focus on fundamentals and mathematical grounding, with the intent to quickly train you on the homebrew if you are hired. For non-ML, it's probably good enough to know how a transformer works.
I would not fault your culture fit strategy. If you have interviewed at another EA org, you should probably anticipate about the same kinds of questions.
@citrinitas thanks that is very helpful. I am applying for a dev role not research. I would leetcode mainly to get into the โsolve fairly well defined problems quickโ mindset which is opposite to my day to day.
Oof, the chat was indeed another interview. I think round 6 "final checks", and we talked a bit about corporate decision-making and what I think about anthropic policies.
My references are getting calls, I've agreed to a background check, and the interviewer today thinks I should hear back within a week, more or less. I don't think the scenario has changed much so I won't re-open the question, but I will create a more narrowly targeted binary market
Hey @citrinitas I am in the interview pipeline at Anthropic and completed the onsite interview. They asked for my references at Anthropic and my references received calls from the recruiter. How long was it before they continued to the next step for you ?
Current status: I sent over available timeslots for the final round at Anthropic -- MWF June 5-16, and they've asked for references ahead of time so that they can call them right away if the interview goes well.
I've also put up "Potion" as an option -- a friend of mine put me in contact, and they're interested in giving me some contract work. I don't anticipate going over the 1-month threshold, but that becomes more likely if Anthropic doesn't pan out.
@citrinitas Anthropic final interview round has been scheduled for the afternoon of the 16th, and I've sent them contact info for my refs.
@citrinitas Interviews done!
Technical: feeling pretty good, I finished a "You are not expected to finish this"
Technical: systems design, probably good but hard to say
Technical: decent, I maybe could have python'd a bit harder/better/faster
Nontechnical culture: this one's hard
Arc Evals: I've received an email that says I'd have passed their trial project round, except that the job I applied to was posted in error and they're not hiring technical roles at the moment. They've invited me to ping them again in a month or two.
I'm not sure what to make of this, but safe to say that app is "cold" for now. Anthropic is the only company I'm actively talking with; if that falls through I'll start a new round.
@citrinitas Sucks to see this turn out disappointing, but i think you learned a lot during this, anyway, goodluck!
Minor speed bump, I think resolved: I hadn't had any updates from Anthropic, so I sent a "checking in" email. I'm now scheduled for a ... second 30-minute hiring manager interview (?) on the 24th. Though they've updated the sequence at https://www.anthropic.com/careers and so this is indeed step 4 (out of 7, now).
Will continue to keep the comments updated. I'd make a market for how many interview rounds I'll make it through, if not for the optics. Manifold is still at the "bronze" bonus tier.
@citrinitas If Anthropic is the only company you're speaking to at this point, I'd definitely encourage applying to a few more places, just from a personal strategic/negotiating perspective. I do love Anthropic and the people there a ton, but having a BATNA makes the process much smoother for you.
You can move through the interviewing process faster when the companies know you're already speaking to another company
More diversity in kinds of roles you can take
Of course, you improve your ability to negotiate comp, but also your ability to ask for other things eg paid time off, remote frequency, etc
Two other places I'd consider:
@Austin yeah, you're probably right. I'd explain my current position more, except that would be a game-theoretically poor move ๐
I don't think Encultured would be a particularly good fit, but I did apply to FAR as a result of your comment. Therefore: manifold is now at the "silver" bonus tier! ๐ ๐ ๐ At resolve I'll pay out at least $100 in mana or dollars distributed to people I think were helpful on this market, assuming that doesn't fall afoul of any site rules.