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Not long ago I left a reasonably cool AI startup to join an ops heavy (like people physically doing work, running warehouses etc) company. There was some adjust

Not long ago I left a reasonably cool AI startup to join an ops heavy (like people physically doing work, running warehouses etc) company. There was some adjustment but the ability to deliver real, concrete, monetary value to people working in the field is incredibly rewarding (and oddly the pay is on par with most bay area startups). I recently talked to a few companies in the AI space, from (smaller) frontier model labs to companies still looking to build "AI products" and my take away was that, if you're not working for one of the big players, the market hasn't really figured out if there is an "AI engineer" job yet. I'm increasingly starting to believe that the future of work for people that have technical skills (more than just 'software') is likely going to be working in places that are less about "shipping software" and more about supporting teams doing something physical in the real world. These companies are also the most ripe to truly leverage AI: they have tons of messy problems that need to be solved and iterated on extremely fast. Operations people tend to be "EoD" deadline people, not quarterly planners. Getting solutions solved in an actionable way on time often means really understanding the core business, the technical space surrounding it, and how to leverage AI to pull of some miracles. It can be stressful, but when you pull it off your stakeholder have sincere and real gratitude and you're actually moving the needle for the company. I don't think the Bay area, even those sniffing the AI vapors the hardest, is really willing to accept what AI is going to do to software and software companies.

tezclarke 7mo ago
The best outcome is bespoke software for every company and small "ops heavy" (in startup context) startups have a window to grow like weeds. Imagine the culture shock and legal / procurement process for an established player to bring a vendor in to build this for them. It won't work, it needs to be an internal team, but even then, the internal politics, and short term affects to people's bonuses and incentives will make it almost impossible.
- tezclarke 7mo ago
  I give this example as I previously worked at a big European REIT. My job was to implement renewable energy across the portfolio which on paper was a no-brainer due to legislation and grants / feed in tariffs etc. We got huge pushback from every angle with the local teams, people paying lip service to drag it out and delay. Eventually I got to the root cause... The capex had to come out of the business unit, and the payback would negatively affect their KPIs and bonus. Next time I came across this kind of issue, I asked to see the incentive structure before approaching anyone.
z3t4 7mo ago
I love working for those companies also, where they are used to waiting months for a small software update and I can do it in hours and they think I'm a wizard.

tezclarke 7mo ago

The best outcome is bespoke software for every company and small "ops heavy" (in startup context) startups have a window to grow like weeds. Imagine the culture shock and legal / procurement process for an established player to bring a vendor in to build this for them. It won't work, it needs to be an internal team, but even then, the internal politics, and short term affects to people's bonuses and incentives will make it almost impossible.

tezclarke 7mo ago
I give this example as I previously worked at a big European REIT. My job was to implement renewable energy across the portfolio which on paper was a no-brainer due to legislation and grants / feed in tariffs etc. We got huge pushback from every angle with the local teams, people paying lip service to drag it out and delay. Eventually I got to the root cause... The capex had to come out of the business unit, and the payback would negatively affect their KPIs and bonus. Next time I came across this kind of issue, I asked to see the incentive structure before approaching anyone.

z3t4 7mo ago

I love working for those companies also, where they are used to waiting months for a small software update and I can do it in hours and they think I'm a wizard.