Name: Eshed Margalit (he/him)
PhD: Neurosciences, Stanford University, 2022
What is your current job?
I am a Machine Learning Scientist at Noetik in San Francisco, California.
My position involves machine learning model training, analysis, experiment formulation, data science, preparing materials (slides, data summaries) for stakeholders, meeting with potential investors, cross-functional collaboration with other teams, machine learning infrastructure engineering, front-end web user interface (UI) design, and mentoring.
I love that we have an amazing, huge multimodal dataset of human cancer samples to train on and analyze, paired with the computing resources required to explore it. Many of the fundamental questions about machine learning that I was curious about in grad school are now answerable with this combination of data + compute at Noetik, and I get to work with a wonderful team while doing it! I also have a lot of freedom in what my day-to-day looks like, relatively few meetings, and I get to apply the skills I picked up in graduate school, which is very rewarding.
How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?
My current boss was a postdoc in the lab I did my PhD in.
PhD grad ➡️ not-quite-postdoc-but-basically-postdoc-in-same-lab-of-PhD ➡️ AI Researcher at stealth startup ➡️ ML Scientist
Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia? Was this a difficult decision or one you felt came easily?
It was a difficult decision early on that clarified as I got closer to defending. I really love doing science and teaching, but I realized that I could do interesting science, and be compensated well for it, without subjecting myself to the challenges of the tenure-track academic job market or the expectations of new faculty members. I also wanted geographic flexibility since I have a partner in medical residency, and many industry jobs were more flexible about location than academic jobs.
What are three pieces of advice you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?
Reach out to a wide net of connections to learn about the kinds of roles that are out there, hear about the work they're doing (a lot of it is very cool science!), and possibly get referrals if job openings come up.
Even if you're committed to leaving academia, don't pivot away from cultivating your own skills and interests as an academic. Continuing to attend talks, think about the problems that excite you, and gaining technical skills can all translate to non-academic jobs and make the remainder of grad school fulfilling.
The job market will occasionally have down cycles where it's harder to find jobs. Being flexible, going to smaller companies, doing or extending a postdoc, or broadening the set of companies you're considering are all viable ways to wait out a bad hiring market.