Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea. Your situation sounds identical to mine. My skill set is that I’ll be parachuting in and setting up GPT-J on their spe

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea. Your situation sounds identical to mine. My skill set is that I’ll be parachuting in and setting up GPT-J on their specialized low level hardware API. I feel like a lot of people could do this if they put their minds to it. Two factors helped. One, the CEO wanted me so badly that they put me through an “accelerated interview” process that consisted of no technical questions. (I was asked to design a security system for a hypothetical billionaire, and then to think of as many creative uses of a soda can as possible with a 3 minute timer counting down.) The other factor is that a $50M contract is at stake. I do think they can land it, and I have a pretty clear idea of how to get them there. It also helped that I happened to be chatting with their client about an unrelated thing right when the CEO happened to first talk to me. He said “small world” and was like tell him so-and-so says hello. Honesty I’ve started to conclude that perhaps it wasn’t useful to use me as a model for others. Everyone’s path is different. I think I’ll write this up into a Book Of Crazy Stories instead of saying it’s advice. As Picard once said, “It’s possible to do nothing wrong and still lose. That’s not a failing; that’s life.” Some better advice for you is probably “have a job you’re totally happy with, and then look.” They could tell that I would walk away, which was a source of strength during negotiations. (I needed it, too.) Maybe it’s a bit like getting an investor; the best way to get it is not to need it. Also, look around a lot! I can’t underscore it enough that most people simply don’t put in the time to go look. They often feel guilty (employer loyalty) or that the interview process is too much of a pain (totally understandable). Perhaps the closest thing to a recipe is, look into this stuff as a side hobby; fly through the interview as a challenge to yourself; after impressing everybody, walk away and see what they’ll do to get you back. Now that I’ve written that out, it suddenly feels a lot more tractable. A dedicated person could do this a few times, repeatably.