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Many companies don't pay ML engineers/researchers for the time spent training an ML model anymore.
by bitL 4y ago
Many companies don't pay ML engineers/researchers for the time spent training an ML model anymore.
- midnightclubbed 4y agoI don’t understand this comment. If my model is training for 2 days I expect to be doing other work while I wait for the results. Are/were there engineers/researchers that expect to get paid to do nothing while they wait for paint to dry?
- bitL 4y agoYes, many of them used the training time for quiet deep thinking without worrying about getting paid.
- PragmaticPulp 4y agoIf they’re doing “deep thinking” about work then it’s literally work. The clock doesn’t stop just because you’re not typing. Also, many of these positions are salaried so they aren’t actively tracking hours.
- bitL 4y agoImagine you are an ML consultant with an activity tracker installed. The company is only going to pay you for the short fragments of time you are typing the source code and launching subtasks, but not for the duration of those tasks if your activity tracker shows no activity on your side. I had a client who wanted to negotiate two rates - one for the active part and another one for the training time part (barely covering AWS costs). If you think this is rare then you might be well-insulated from the market.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago> I had a client who wanted to negotiate two rates - one for the active part and another one for the training time part (barely covering AWS costs). This doesn’t make any sense. Training time is billed according as a passed through cost plus, not an hourly rate for the person who started the task. I don’t know anyone who would have gotten away with billing AWS training time at their own hourly rate as if they were working. That’s ridiculous. Would be hilarious to see someone submit 24-hour days for long training runs though.
- bitL 4y agoI can understand that for outside-working hours tasks. But not for working hours where many companies really try to do the activity tracking-based payments like as if the consultant didn't have time allocated on working on their tasks already.