You're making a tone argument but calling it a thought-terminating cliche. Anyone who's capable of forming an opinion on the CIA's policies has already settled on one. On the other hand, the parent downplays the CIA's actions, starting off with "Whatever one might think of US diplomacy", which oozes of propaganda and should be called out.
Talking about places like "the Other Site" certainly sounds like tribalism though-- I hope that observation helps you on your journey!
Hi, thank you for admitting in your first sentence you're not qualified to comment on the subject at hand, yet felt compelled to share your two cents. Here's the context for your totally uninformed opinion:
I was a major contributor for etcd 2.3-3.2 at CoreOS. The people who extended etcd to support gRPC included the original etcd author (hi Xiang). gRPC support was necessary for good performance; we had benchmarks to justify the decision. Likewise, v3 brought about a key-value model change that was incompatible with v2 to better support binary data, ranging over the keyspace, transactions etc. A v2-style gateway for v3 with a pretty JSON API was planned but never completed due to lack of resources; the ugly gRPC json gateway turned out to be good enough for most people. Similarly I wrote a proxy to run v2 requests over v3 instances, which does support the v2 JSON API. This isn't as if a new group of people showed up and ruined the software without caring about existing users. None of us were "Xooglers".
It seems what you're proposing is what the author both argues against and wrongly believes is what happened. We constantly pushed back against k8s influence. If we didn't, etcd would be a k8s sub-project right now. I'd also like to point out that removing the people who do the difficult work of actually writing the software from the decision process is incredibly insulting and devalues their labor. How dare you.
CS PhD from Stanford in dynamic program analysis. Lost all my friends. Ghosted by companies for jobs directly related to my research. Everyone I knew who went directly into industry is doing way better than me. My salary has only tracked inflation. I sorely regret the decision and consider it to have fundamentally ruined my life beyond repair.
>I sorely regret the decision and consider it to have fundamentally ruined my life beyond repair.
Are you sure you would not feel the same way had you gone straight to industry? Musing over those who stayed, got their PhDs, and are in fascinating, high paying jobs?
My suggestion is that you try not to have an external locus of control.
I spent 7 years in grad school, realized a PhD won't get me the job I was seeking, and quit. As a result, everything you say is also true for me, and I don't even have the degree to show for it.
But I also know that grad school was a great time for me, and I did get most of what I wanted out of it. As for my not-so-great industry outcome, I do know I'm not really putting a huge amount of effort to improve it.
The PhD is about the journey. The certificate at the end is just a technicality. Could it be that you valued the certificate more than the journey?
> I sorely regret the decision and consider it to have fundamentally ruined my life beyond repair.
This is an incredibly worrying statement; nobody should feel that way. Do you mind if I ask why you think it has not only ruined your life but so much that it is unrepairable?
It seems to me that as a Ph.D. you have, largely on your own, figured out how to solve some very hard problems and smash some very large rocks. The hard problems/big rocks you are faced with now have just changed somewhat: finding work you enjoy; making enough money and/or matching expenditures to income; forming/restoring friendships and social bonds. Those are very challenging problems, but they are solvable.
Regarding being ghosted: 1) it's not you, it's the research job market and/or the the stupid way most companies hire people, and 2) companies routinely ghost applicants - it's incredibly rude but shockingly common. Job-hunting is a weird game but there are probably some winning strategies.
And as Kierkegaard didn't say: "Get a Ph.D., and you will regret it; don't get a Ph.D., and you will also regret it; get a Ph.D. or do not get a Ph.D., you will regret it either way...This, gentlemen, is the essence of all [doctors of] Philosophy." ;-)
If it's the same story as most other fields, the related jobs available require either:
1) No phd, because those either command a high salary, or are likely to jump ship for higher pay as soon as they meet qualification 2:
2) A phd and previous experience, because the job can't be trusted to someone fresh out of school without practical experience.
That was more or less the story from all of my circa 2008 friends who graduated with bio/chem engineering type degrees, trying to decide between grad school or entering industry, at least...
Along with the factors that @zdragnar mentioned, funding for industrial R&D isn’t very stable either. One place I interviewed lost the contract that would have funded my position; another place with a lot of goverment projects decided to freeze hiring due to “political uncertainty.” Neither place was particularly upfront about this, but their decisions do make a bit of sense.
There’s also a ton of misunderstandings between the academic and industrial folks. “Expert in machine learning” in a job posting might mean anything from “a few years experience” to “I literally wrote the book on this topic.” Likewise, it is also hard to present accomplishments in a way that impresses both sides. There’s certainly a lot of currently-empty room for specialized, savvy recruiters (and if you are one, looking for a neuro/ML person, let’s talk!)
I have heard it anecdotally time and time again, "Overqualified".
Specialization only pays more when there's demand for the exact specialization. Nobody wants to pay a PhD and risk them moving onto the "perfect" position when the same job can be done by somebody more generalized.
I once worked with a guy that had a law degree. He never listed that law degree when applying to software engineering jobs. People figured he'd just go back to law, even though he hated practicing law.
A quick google search says that grad students are 6 times more likely to experience depression than the general population, so that is something to keep in mind!
And a survey at Berkeley (your rivals/colleagues across the bay) found nearly half of Ph.D. students showing signs of depression.
There are always people better than you in this world no matter you've a PhD or not but you can always find a niche market and grow your expertise there.
Your friends maybe waiting for your call. Be proactive.
Not the OP, but often times people coming out of PhDs don't have applicable engineering skills that are used to deliver actual products to actual people. Getting results to put into a publication and delivering a product that people rely on are two skillsets that have very little to do with one another.
This will sound rude and I’m sorry but there is no way your entire life is ruined because you decided to get a PhD from one of the top 5 most prestigious institutions in the entire world.
It's all about perspective. Also, I'm betting 5 years from now they no longer think that.
Sometimes it's hard to see very far when you're in the weeds, but once you get to the other side it's easier to look back and realize it was absolutely worth doing, even with the challenges.
I'm prepared to believe that going deeply into student debt can have this effect. It is a very insidious form of debt that can't be discharged through standard bankruptcy.
My understanding is that it's possible to avoid this through TA or RA positions with tuition waivers, at least at reputable programs. So I think the question of debt should be considered somewhat separately (though not entirely separately, as this insidious form of debt doesn't existing the world of stupid mortgages or credit card irresponsibility, where at least you have the topic to collapse in bankruptcy and, 7+ years later, start anew. Forever debt lives in the hellacious realm of student loans, divorces, and Dickens novels).
I mastered out of my PhD program, largely partly because I got a good job outside with money and fun projects, and partly because I was struggling academically. I do occasionally "wish" (eh, not really) that I had a PhD, but that's because I work in a university (although in a technical track). I accept that research positions aren't open to MS holders in Universities (or in some industry positions), but the degree ceiling definitely extends into non-research positions that would be available to MS (or BS or no degree) holders in non-university tracks. This, however, is my own deal. If I don't like it, I need to leave, so I wouldn't expect anyone to give this complaint much force.
There's typically no debt doing a STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering and Math) Ph.D. in most places, unless you're talking about undergrad debt.
STEM Ph.D.s are like jobs. You get paid a stipend (the financial package typically requires you to work as a TA/RA).
A few data points. My Ph.D. program paid me $30k/yr tax free over 4 years. Prestige scholarship holders were able to get even more, maybe $45k-50k. (my numbers are old -- I got my Ph.D. nearly a decade ago)
I've had friends at Princeton who received packages in the range of $28k-$35k/yr from their engineering depts.
Not a huge amount of money, but enough for a single grad student to survive on. I have a friend who did a Ph.D. in Math at Stanford, and he didn't have to pay cent.
Debt is generally not a common issue for STEM Ph.Ds.
Humanities/Social Science Ph.Ds. on the other hand are a completely different ball game. I've heard that many live in relative penury and rarely finish on-time (taking anywhere from 5-7 years). Humanities Ph.Ds. please add data points.
It is still pretty much the same, the UW stipend in Seattle is enough to rent an apartment in a nice neighborhood and eat well. Not an extravagant life but no one is going even 20k into debt, let alone 50,100,200k that people do for other professional paths.
I know Stanford PhDs have even higher stipends to offset the costs of Palo Alto.
I did not know that debt was a mitigated issue for Ph.D's. Thank you for informing me.
If that's the case, and he can literally just light his diploma on fire and walk out into the world without any huge burdens (like debts), then it does seem strange to say it ruined his life.
Perhaps he let someone go who he really adored and is being romantic. Or maybe he thinks he has to keep following this path.. but if he's free to start over, there's no need to worry about the old ruined life anymore.
The article neglected to directly mention the new transaction features, but etcd 3.3's txn semantics are much more powerful than 3.2. It's what makes the new key leasing feature work and can be used to support key range queries over STM as well.
Talking about places like "the Other Site" certainly sounds like tribalism though-- I hope that observation helps you on your journey!