> who wanted to pursue a career in systems software research
replyI interacted with many professors in OS research and other adjacent systems fields when touring grad schools and I heard or saw that some were extremely toxic or intense compared to other fields I saw. With OS at least, big tech companies seem to hold a lot of influence over research directions (eg. so much of it is specifically for AI datacenters, or for one company's AI datacenter problems), and I asked OS professors about this and got disheartened replies that there was nothing they could do because of the incentives in the field. I was quite disillusioned. I know that AI being a hot new topic makes leaves more stones unturned and might lead to more publishability, but it's still depressing.
I’m out of the loop these days in systems research since I largely focus on programming languages and AI these days (though I still love systems) and I treat research more as a side hobby rather than a full-fledged career. It’s disappointing to hear about toxic systems labs. There’s also the “funding-or-perish” and “publish-or-perish” pressures of academia. This is one of the reasons why I teach at a community college, where 8 months of the year I focus on teaching, leaving me 4 months of break per year where I could do research without having to worry about my tenure chances or about funding, though it would be nice to be able to pay some students to help with research projects, and it would also be nice to have the funds to buy expensive equipment such as GPUs with large amounts of RAM.
replyThat seems like a great setup, and maybe something I'll think about after grad school (or maybe look into being a professor at LACs or less research oriented schools)! I'm already sort of nervous about doing the PhD because of the insane toxicity I've encountered and the pressure to do research in direct support of industry (which is probably exacerbated by NSF funding being impossible to get), but hopefully I'll find things to enjoy about it. The career prospects also seem tenuous, as a lot of outcomes seem to be "go through a brutal tenure process" or work for FAANG/adjacent (probably not even in research since places like MSR are difficult to get). But I would like the creative freedom a professorship might offer.
reply