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Recent PhDs of #AcademicTwitter considering tech - some thoughts from my move 10 years ago, in case it helps. I left DC for Palo Alto the week of my defense, not sure about tech, but also not sure about academic linguistics given the recession. The first year was very hard. 1/10
I started temping as a receptionist for extra cash. Surprisingly, after 6 weeks, that got me a temp job working on college rank statistics at the Carnegie Foundation (I was at the front desk, heard about the need, interviewed and started the next week). Serendipity is real. 2/10
Then, through a friend, I got a temp job building corpora for NLP at Microsoft. It was not well paid ($16/hr to start), but it seemed like a path. I applied a lesson my dad taught me: find the hard but important problems that are being ignored and solve them. 3/10
In this case, it was finding a scalable way to build corpora to train the research systems that became Cortana. My (genuinely wonderful) managers saw that I was solving this problem. Still, it was hard to get headcount for a full-time role. So I started interviewing. 4/10
I interviewed for many random positions: head hunter, HR, user research, call flow designer, etc. Often the feedback was that I was simultaneously over- and under-qualified. But I learned what hiring managers were looking for and where my gaps were. I started filling them. 5/10
Also interviewing ended up making my managers at Microsoft nervous that I would leave. They quickly found headcount for a full-time position. Lesson here: make yourself indispensable then start looking for the exits. 6/10
Also, I spent a lot of time building relationships and learning. Those relationships and the knowledge I developed, allowed me to move into program management, and, from there, eventually into product (after about 4 years). 7/10
How has the experience been overall? Positive, with some sh*t mixed in. It's a very different world. Not harder (easier in many respects), but the expectations are completely different. 8/10
Depth is less valued than speed (not in a bad way, but takes getting used to). Quickly assessing opportunities and adjusting is critical. Bravery is essential. I have had to convince people that I can add value and explain how. This takes practice. 9/10
Overall, I would do it again. It's a worthwhile career with the ability to make a big impact. I've found it helpful to have academic hobbies (art history, in my case), to stay grounded. There's a lot of good in it. Best of luck! 10/10
