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Google Brain Residency Program – 7 months in and looking ahead
- ben_mann 10y agoSummary: Google Brain team hired a bunch of 1-year residents to do research with them. They've published 21 papers already and are loving it. Apply for next year here: g.co/brainresidency
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoA resident sounds very much like a post doc in the academic world.
- closed 10y agoThis made me wonder how well they pay, but there is no mention of money anywhere, which maybe makes it _more_ academic than a post-doc :o. application page: https://www.google.com/about/careers/jobs#!t=jo&jid=/google/the-google-brain-residency-2017-program-1600-amphitheatre-pkwy-mountain-view-ca-159360005& https://www.google.com/about/careers/jobs#!t=jo&jid=/google/...
- periphrasis 10y agoWhile a different program, Google's Engineering Residency reportedly pays about $100k, depending on location. I would imagine that the Brain Residency pays something comparable.
- gpm 10y agoThey came to do a recruitment talk at my university. Per the spokesperson, they pay exactly the same as any other introductory job at google (so a hell of a lot more than academia).
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bronxbomber92 10y agoFor the residents that quit jobs in industry to do this program, what's next for them? How many residents are converting to permanent employees?
- cinjon 10y agoThe current group doesn't end until at least June and so, except for those who just applied to grad schools, we're all continuing to do more awesome research here rather than starting to solidify what comes next. That being said, this is an unparalleled experience in the field and a phenomenal road to travel regardless of what we decide to do afterward.
- bronxbomber92 10y agoBut as someone who has industry experience, what are the advantages of applying for the residency program over a normal perm position within Google Brain? The Residency program allows you to focus more on research than engineering I suppose?
- nl 10y agoIt's true there are downsides to risking things like quiting your industry job to take a residency with the most prestigious industrial AI lab in the world. I guess they'll always have the fallback option of taking a $500K/year position elsewhere.
- eva1984 10y agoWonder how research this is, what if people are looking for more engineering oriented experience?
- cinjon 10y agoIt is a very research-oriented experience, but you can definitely frame your work as more engineering-intensive. Quite a few of the residents have done some more really impressive engineering feats in the research domain.
- ma2rten 10y agoIf you are looking for an engineering oriented experience you should apply for a full time Software Engineer or Intern position.
- eva1984 10y agoAlready a fulltime Engineer myself, I guess what I am looking at can be more phrased as applied machine learning, to solve production related problems. This is somewhat different than a regular engineering role though.
- dgacmu 10y agoWe have a few programs for this. As I mentioned above, the ML ninjas program is like an internal engineering nfocused residency for existing SWEs. There's also a huge amount of internal training courses to get up to speed on machine learning. There are, however, options for existing employees. (step 1: apply for job.)
- ma2rten 10y agoThe role of Software Engineer at Google is boarder than in other companies. Applied Machine Learning and actually even most research is done by Software Engineers.
- automatwon 10y agoThe wide array of topics studied by residents reflects the diversity of the residents themselves — some come to the program as new graduates with degrees ranging from BAs to Ph.Ds in computer science to physics and mathematics to biology and neuroscience, while other residents come with years of industry experience under their belts
- cinjon 10y agoHi there! I'm Cinjon, a current resident in the Google Brain Residency. Feel free to ask any Qs and I'll answer them.
- bddwca 10y agoWhat's the interview process like?
- cinjon 10y agoOff the cuff, and probably a lot updated since, you should think of it like the normal Google interview but geared towards figuring out how well you'd do in the research environment. Prepare for the former but understand the latter.
- joshvm 10y agoWhat's your background? Given the rather stringent entry requirements, why do you think you were accepted? I'm guessing this is an extremely competitive placement!
- cinjon 10y agoDemonstrated interest. From peers in the program, I have found that to be the most consistent marker. (MIT --> Startups --> Research --> GB)
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- aeontech 10y agoThis really makes me think Google is in some aspects the Xerox PARC labs of our generation... is any other company doing this kind of research investment?
- yareally 10y agoVolkswagen, Samsung, Intel and Microsoft[1] all spend more on R&D than Google does[2] and put that funding into a wide variety of areas just as Google does. There's also non-profit research think tanks like Battelle[3] [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20160329190202/http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/global/home/what-we-think/innovation1000/top-innovators-spenders http://web.archive.org/web/20160329190202/http://www.strateg... [3] http://www.battelle.org/ http://www.battelle.org/
- PunchTornado 10y agoYeah, but if they have results like google they really manage to keep them secret.
- markeroon 10y agoMS research has historically been fantastic in computer vision.
- hardmaru 10y agoOne of the things I like about the residency program, and google brain in general, is the openness of the research environment. For example, it is easy for us to release open source code related our research, and in fact we are even encouraged to do so. Some of us even continue to write personal blogs about machine learning research work done in the program. In addition to open source projects such as tensorflow, people on the team also contribute and develop other open source libraries such as pybullet, rather than using proprietary, closed-source physics libraries.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- zhiyuan 10y agoHey long time lurker and first time commenter here. May I ask if you could ping you for a few tips on my application. Right now I am finishing up a master's in robotics (mix of computer science and electrical engineering) at an Ivy league university (also did my undergrad here). I have previous research experience implementing (from scratch) and training convolutional neural nets. Right now I'm doing researching in natural language processing but not with RNNs. This program sounds very competitive and I would love to get in, so any help is greatly appreciated!
- ilaksh 10y agoWhy aren't any of these geniuses working on AGI? Such as applying some of these NN advancements to agents in diverse 3d virtual environments attempting varied/gradually increasingly complex tasks and learning based on low-level (grounded) sensory inputs?
- gauMah 10y ago"Brain residents will spend the first two weeks of the program going through the Google Orientation sessions interlaced with introductory deep learning classes" It would be great if, Google can make these two week introductory courses available for everyone.
- cjauvin 10y agoThis might be the closest thing there is to it: https://www.udacity.com/course/deep-learning--ud730 https://www.udacity.com/course/deep-learning--ud730
- cinjon 10y agoThe wonderful Chris Olah teaches this, and in some ways he is by making them available through distill.pub. Check it out!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- JedDDD 10y agoThanks for taking time to answer questions. Can you please elaborate a little about the interviewing process?
- JedDDD 10y agoThanks for taking time to answer questions. Can you please elaborate a little about the interviewing process?