We would like to say congratulations to Dr. Eddy Wu for graduating from USC/MCL. He is going to join a start-up company in Seattle in 2018 February. He prepared a message about his job hunting experience to share with all MCL members, Alums and friends. We wish him the very best in his career at Magvii Research.
After graduating from MCL, I’ve decided to join Megvii Research USA as a senior research scientist. Megvii is a fast-growing unicorn startup company based in Beijing, China focusing on AI technologies. It is especially famous for its face recognition technology (known as Face++). Megvii research USA is a new branch located at Redmond WA, and is directed by Dr. Jue Wang (http://www.juew.org/). The whole Megvii research is led by Dr. Jian Sun (http://www.jiansun.org/).
Joining a startup company is always risky, but I have a strong desire becoming part of Megvii for several reasons. First, I like fast-paced environments, and I enjoy the challenges of bringing latest computer vision and deep learning technologies to real-world applications. Secondly, Megvii has shown great successes in certain AI fields with their talented teams, and signs have shown that China may have potential to lead in AI development in the foreseeable future. Another reason is that my new role in Megvii also has a great match with my researches in MCL as well as my 6-year industrial experiences prior to my PhD study.
Job hunting is an exhausted process. I applied for, and interviewed with different types companies including big name ones, industrial research labs, and startup companies in different stages. I only targeted computer vision or deep learning roles, with different types (engineer/scientist) and levels. Although I got interview invitations from many companies, eventually I only got 10+ onsite interviews and 7 offers before I stop job searching. This was a difficult process with lots of frustration and uncertainties. To perform well in an interview, coding skills are extremely important, especially for new graduate engineer/scientist roles in big companies. For more diverse positions, it’s quite helpful to be prepared for presenting your past experiences clearly, answering machine learning related questions smoothly, and be confident about any questions including behavioral ones.
I really appreciate for Prof. Kuo’s guidance in the past four years. I learnt and grew a lot in my PhD period. With the PhD training, I got much more opportunities and higher values in the job market compared to what I had four years ago. I encourage current MCL students to work hard under Prof. Kuo’s advice. In this field, lots of opportunities are waiting for you, and I believe you will eventually find a job you’re excited about.
