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Author here—thanks for these comments! I realise that this is a valid take, but it's not what I had in mind. Being based in European academia salaries for Ph.D.

Author here—thanks for these comments! I realise that this is a valid take, but it's not what I had in mind. Being based in European academia salaries for Ph.D. students and other personnel are more or less fixed (of course, going to industry, this is not the case). I certainly do not want to exploit students. My observation is that modern machine learning research entails so many additional moving parts (most, but not all of them, involving around SWE) that any student with skills in this area is already an asset. However, these skills are typically ignored while hiring. I have seen the scenario you describe, but I it is definitely not what I intended to put a finger on in this post. Thanks for pointing this out!

BeetleB 5y ago
> Being based in European academia salaries for Ph.D. students and other personnel are more or less fixed And this may depend where in Europe, but they get paid more than in the US, and also tend to get full benefits. At least those that I knew in Denmark/Belgium were. They were not even classified as students, but as full time employees. Doing PhD research was their job.
- Topolomancer 5y ago
  Yes, precisely! And I should stress that the students I hire as PhD students are hired as exactly that. No strings attached, no additional duties, etc. They are free to focus on their research. My point in the article was more to put a finger on the fact that there is 'core work' (papers, papers, papers!!!) in academia and 'non-core work.' The latter is rewarded less, in my experience, even though it's a prerequisite to get the former done.
  - zwaps 5y ago
    Your answers feel like you are engaging in cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, you recognize in your article that "non-core" work is not rewarded in academia. In particular, however, the situation is dire for current PhD students. Getting into a PhD program is easy compared to getting an academic job (even - or especially - in the EU) with at least some job security. Further, you probably know that most PhDs lack the knowledge, experience and ability to accurately judge their chances on the future job market with any accuracy. On the other hand, your replies indicate that you are following the "traditional" European research hierarchy, where the PhD student does years of "non-core" work for the Professor, ultimately ends up with less publications. This leads to issues competing internationally, a chain of short term contracts, post-docs or adjunct positions and finally, many leaving academia (or at least the EU). Which, by the way, is a real problem. In European academia, we are all aware of these traditional hierarchical sentiments. At each university, there are stories about the Professor who said something like: "Your first research ideas belong to me", or Professors who actively resist the establishment of a stipend-based PhD program with the argument that "Someone (the PhDs) has to do the work at the institute!". Now, there are probably countries that do better than others. Your state might mandate that PhD students get a salary and benefits, but all that is worth little if they end up in a bad condition after 3-6 years of doing their PhD. And here, your reply here worries me. No, you do not hire PhDs to *work* for you. You hire them to train them to be researchers and to collaborate on that. Next to publishing and teaching, as a Professor, you are responsible for enabling these PhD students to have a successful career. More than in any other career, it is YOU, the advisor, who ends up making or breaking the future of a human being. The thought that PhDs are merely hired workers who have to work through "menial, non core" work before they are allowed to get to their research, is one of the main reasons why academic research in the EU is doing so badly compared to other regions in the world. In the interest of your future PhD students, I implore you to consider how much impact you really have on their lives!
    - Topolomancer 5y ago
      > Your answers feel like you are engaging in cognitive dissonance. I am not sure where you are getting this from. My intent is only to point out that there is more to consider than publication output. I will try to make this position more precise. I again want to stress at this point that I do not want to hire students to perform non-core work; this is not what I wrote in the article and I am certainly not advocating for that because it is exploitation (almost of the form 'trading a PhD for years of programming'). My point is that modern research has some non-core aspects, and in my experience, these are ignore by the PIs insofar as they are expected to be performed, but they will not be rewarded or recognised. > On the other hand, your replies indicate that you are following the "traditional" European research hierarchy, where the PhD student does years of "non-core" work for the Professor, ultimately ends up with less publications. This leads to issues competing internationally, a chain of short term contracts, post-docs or adjunct positions and finally, many leaving academia (or at least the EU). Which, by the way, is a real problem. Fully agree with you that it's a problem. But in my experience, we cannot get around the fact that ML research is certainly helped by good SWE skills. Now there are people that like these sort of aspects more than others; and my point is that they can also help to enrich a team, even though---if just seen through the lens of publication output---they might seem less strong. > In European academia, we are all aware of these traditional hierarchical sentiments. At each university, there are stories about the Professor who said something like: "Your first research ideas belong to me", or Professors who actively resist the establishment of a stipend-based PhD program with the argument that "Someone (the PhDs) has to do the work at the institute!". Agreed, but I have to emphasise that I am not talk about doing work for the institute or for maintaining lab infrastructure. I realise how one could arrive at this impression, but this is far from my original intent. I wanted to point out that hiring someone with a more generalist skill set and mindset can enrich a research time _just as well_ as hiring someone with a more expert mindset. > And here, your reply here worries me. No, you do not hire PhDs to work for you. You hire them to train them to be researchers and to collaborate on that. Next to publishing and teaching, as a Professor, you are responsible for enabling these PhD students to have a successful career. More than in any other career, it is YOU, the advisor, who ends up making or breaking the future of a human being. If I could rephrase this in my own terms, I would also state that I hire them to work with me, to collaborate with me. I also agree that I should enable them to have a successful career---regardless of where they choose to work in the end. > The thought that PhDs are merely hired workers who have to work through "menial, non core" work before they are allowed to get to their research, is one of the main reasons why academic research in the EU is doing so badly compared to other regions in the world. Fully agree with you here, but this is not what I wrote at all. A PhD student is foremost a budding researcher. My point is that it makes sense to consider their skill sets in a more holistic fashion when hiring them. > In the interest of your future PhD students, I implore you to consider how much impact you really have on their lives! I am keenly aware of this responsibility. I realise that my points above might have been misconstrued, but please understand that I have foremost their interests in mind. It is disheartening to see how my more generalist friends who are doing their PhDs are not recognised at all in academia. _This_, IMO, is also some form of 'brain drain' that could be avoided.
periheli0n 5y ago
> I certainly do not want to exploit students. Then you must tell them that when they do “non-core-work“ they are essentially wasting their time; at least if they intend to stay in academia. Sure there is some technical housekeeping necessary to get research done and papers written. But it must be kept to an absolute minimum. It is nice to have students who polish the web site or set up CI on GitHub. But these students will almost certainly have fewer research results to show at the end of their PhD, compared to their officemates who just focus 100% on their research. I don’t like it either but it’s the painful truth. I’ve seen way too many PhD students wasting their time doing incredibly valuable work for the lab but failing to publish their own work. It‘s the responsibility of the PI to make it absolutely clear to those students what is happening and that they should focus on a career outside academia if they enjoy doing such things.
- Topolomancer 5y ago
  I only partially agree with you there---as a PI, I also have an option to reward these sort of activities. I understand that it is not a good idea to employ someone for the wrong role, so any 'non-core work' activities need to be at least discussed with respect to potential ramifications. However, I find it somehow weird that we only ever measure success along one axis. Moreover, these students often serve as facilitators, making it easier for others to finish projects. Navigating this precarious space is not an easy task for me, I admit that.
  - periheli0n 5y ago
    > as a PI, I also have an option to reward these sort of activities. But honestly, your options are very limited, especially in Germany. You cannot pay them more, and you also cannot offer them a permanent employment contract. Most of the time it’s even hard to extend an existing contract. You can perhaps send them to nice conferences, but then you would send the principal author to the conference, too. But I totally agree that academia fails at rewarding people who facilitate the work of others. There is some perversion to this, since the key part of academia is precisely to spread and exchange knowledge. In this light it is funny to see that in many universities (especially in Germany) teaching is not valued much for career progression.

BeetleB 5y ago

> Being based in European academia salaries for Ph.D. students and other personnel are more or less fixed And this may depend where in Europe, but they get paid more than in the US, and also tend to get full benefits. At least those that I knew in Denmark/Belgium were. They were not even classified as students, but as full time employees. Doing PhD research was their job.

Topolomancer 5y ago
Yes, precisely! And I should stress that the students I hire as PhD students are hired as exactly that. No strings attached, no additional duties, etc. They are free to focus on their research. My point in the article was more to put a finger on the fact that there is 'core work' (papers, papers, papers!!!) in academia and 'non-core work.' The latter is rewarded less, in my experience, even though it's a prerequisite to get the former done.
- zwaps 5y ago
  Your answers feel like you are engaging in cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, you recognize in your article that "non-core" work is not rewarded in academia. In particular, however, the situation is dire for current PhD students. Getting into a PhD program is easy compared to getting an academic job (even - or especially - in the EU) with at least some job security. Further, you probably know that most PhDs lack the knowledge, experience and ability to accurately judge their chances on the future job market with any accuracy. On the other hand, your replies indicate that you are following the "traditional" European research hierarchy, where the PhD student does years of "non-core" work for the Professor, ultimately ends up with less publications. This leads to issues competing internationally, a chain of short term contracts, post-docs or adjunct positions and finally, many leaving academia (or at least the EU). Which, by the way, is a real problem. In European academia, we are all aware of these traditional hierarchical sentiments. At each university, there are stories about the Professor who said something like: "Your first research ideas belong to me", or Professors who actively resist the establishment of a stipend-based PhD program with the argument that "Someone (the PhDs) has to do the work at the institute!". Now, there are probably countries that do better than others. Your state might mandate that PhD students get a salary and benefits, but all that is worth little if they end up in a bad condition after 3-6 years of doing their PhD. And here, your reply here worries me. No, you do not hire PhDs to *work* for you. You hire them to train them to be researchers and to collaborate on that. Next to publishing and teaching, as a Professor, you are responsible for enabling these PhD students to have a successful career. More than in any other career, it is YOU, the advisor, who ends up making or breaking the future of a human being. The thought that PhDs are merely hired workers who have to work through "menial, non core" work before they are allowed to get to their research, is one of the main reasons why academic research in the EU is doing so badly compared to other regions in the world. In the interest of your future PhD students, I implore you to consider how much impact you really have on their lives!
  - Topolomancer 5y ago
    > Your answers feel like you are engaging in cognitive dissonance. I am not sure where you are getting this from. My intent is only to point out that there is more to consider than publication output. I will try to make this position more precise. I again want to stress at this point that I do not want to hire students to perform non-core work; this is not what I wrote in the article and I am certainly not advocating for that because it is exploitation (almost of the form 'trading a PhD for years of programming'). My point is that modern research has some non-core aspects, and in my experience, these are ignore by the PIs insofar as they are expected to be performed, but they will not be rewarded or recognised. > On the other hand, your replies indicate that you are following the "traditional" European research hierarchy, where the PhD student does years of "non-core" work for the Professor, ultimately ends up with less publications. This leads to issues competing internationally, a chain of short term contracts, post-docs or adjunct positions and finally, many leaving academia (or at least the EU). Which, by the way, is a real problem. Fully agree with you that it's a problem. But in my experience, we cannot get around the fact that ML research is certainly helped by good SWE skills. Now there are people that like these sort of aspects more than others; and my point is that they can also help to enrich a team, even though---if just seen through the lens of publication output---they might seem less strong. > In European academia, we are all aware of these traditional hierarchical sentiments. At each university, there are stories about the Professor who said something like: "Your first research ideas belong to me", or Professors who actively resist the establishment of a stipend-based PhD program with the argument that "Someone (the PhDs) has to do the work at the institute!". Agreed, but I have to emphasise that I am not talk about doing work for the institute or for maintaining lab infrastructure. I realise how one could arrive at this impression, but this is far from my original intent. I wanted to point out that hiring someone with a more generalist skill set and mindset can enrich a research time _just as well_ as hiring someone with a more expert mindset. > And here, your reply here worries me. No, you do not hire PhDs to work for you. You hire them to train them to be researchers and to collaborate on that. Next to publishing and teaching, as a Professor, you are responsible for enabling these PhD students to have a successful career. More than in any other career, it is YOU, the advisor, who ends up making or breaking the future of a human being. If I could rephrase this in my own terms, I would also state that I hire them to work with me, to collaborate with me. I also agree that I should enable them to have a successful career---regardless of where they choose to work in the end. > The thought that PhDs are merely hired workers who have to work through "menial, non core" work before they are allowed to get to their research, is one of the main reasons why academic research in the EU is doing so badly compared to other regions in the world. Fully agree with you here, but this is not what I wrote at all. A PhD student is foremost a budding researcher. My point is that it makes sense to consider their skill sets in a more holistic fashion when hiring them. > In the interest of your future PhD students, I implore you to consider how much impact you really have on their lives! I am keenly aware of this responsibility. I realise that my points above might have been misconstrued, but please understand that I have foremost their interests in mind. It is disheartening to see how my more generalist friends who are doing their PhDs are not recognised at all in academia. _This_, IMO, is also some form of 'brain drain' that could be avoided.

periheli0n 5y ago

> I certainly do not want to exploit students. Then you must tell them that when they do “non-core-work“ they are essentially wasting their time; at least if they intend to stay in academia. Sure there is some technical housekeeping necessary to get research done and papers written. But it must be kept to an absolute minimum. It is nice to have students who polish the web site or set up CI on GitHub. But these students will almost certainly have fewer research results to show at the end of their PhD, compared to their officemates who just focus 100% on their research. I don’t like it either but it’s the painful truth. I’ve seen way too many PhD students wasting their time doing incredibly valuable work for the lab but failing to publish their own work. It‘s the responsibility of the PI to make it absolutely clear to those students what is happening and that they should focus on a career outside academia if they enjoy doing such things.

Topolomancer 5y ago
I only partially agree with you there---as a PI, I also have an option to reward these sort of activities. I understand that it is not a good idea to employ someone for the wrong role, so any 'non-core work' activities need to be at least discussed with respect to potential ramifications. However, I find it somehow weird that we only ever measure success along one axis. Moreover, these students often serve as facilitators, making it easier for others to finish projects. Navigating this precarious space is not an easy task for me, I admit that.
- periheli0n 5y ago
  > as a PI, I also have an option to reward these sort of activities. But honestly, your options are very limited, especially in Germany. You cannot pay them more, and you also cannot offer them a permanent employment contract. Most of the time it’s even hard to extend an existing contract. You can perhaps send them to nice conferences, but then you would send the principal author to the conference, too. But I totally agree that academia fails at rewarding people who facilitate the work of others. There is some perversion to this, since the key part of academia is precisely to spread and exchange knowledge. In this light it is funny to see that in many universities (especially in Germany) teaching is not valued much for career progression.