Given that you’ve described various ‘primarily conceptual’ projects on the Alignment Team, and given the distinction between Scientists and Engineers, one aspect that I’m unsure about is roughly: Would you expect a Research Scientist on the Alignment Team to necessarily have a minimum level of practical ML knowledge? Are you able to say any more about that? e.g. Would they have to pass a general Deep Mind coding test or something like that?
Yes, we’d definitely expect some practical ML knowledge, and yes, there would be a coding interview.
There isn’t a set bar; I could imagine hiring someone who did merely okay on the ML interview and was kinda bad on the coding interview, but both their past work and other interviews demonstrated excellent conceptual reasoning skills, precisely because we have many primarily conceptual projects. But I don’t trust conceptual reasoning to get the answer right, if you have very little understanding of how AI systems work in practice, so I still care about some level of ML knowledge.
Hi there,
Given that you’ve described various ‘primarily conceptual’ projects on the Alignment Team, and given the distinction between Scientists and Engineers, one aspect that I’m unsure about is roughly: Would you expect a Research Scientist on the Alignment Team to necessarily have a minimum level of practical ML knowledge? Are you able to say any more about that? e.g. Would they have to pass a general Deep Mind coding test or something like that?
Yes, we’d definitely expect some practical ML knowledge, and yes, there would be a coding interview.
There isn’t a set bar; I could imagine hiring someone who did merely okay on the ML interview and was kinda bad on the coding interview, but both their past work and other interviews demonstrated excellent conceptual reasoning skills, precisely because we have many primarily conceptual projects. But I don’t trust conceptual reasoning to get the answer right, if you have very little understanding of how AI systems work in practice, so I still care about some level of ML knowledge.
Thanks Rohin!