Lot of AI Company Recruiters Reaching Out

Posted by jay_boi123@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 29 comments

Background: I have around 4 years of experience mainly in backend software engineering. I’ve worked at Big Tech: Amazon and am currently at Intuit (survived the layoffs last week).

Almost on a daily basis I’ll have recruiters ping me on LinkedIn or Email asking me if I’m interested in their company which seems to be some sort of an LLM wrapper startup and are usually YCombinator or VC Capital funded. These companies are almost exclusively hybrid/in office 5 days a week in SF.

Apologies if I’m being dismissive and I’m sure there is a lot of engineering talent in these companies, but my instinct is to avoid these companies. I believe that their compute and generative AI cost means that they will almost always run at a loss and relying so heavily on generative AI (a medium known to hallucinate) seems like a recipe for disaster.

Wanted to see if there were other devs here entertaining similar interview opportunities. What are some indicators that a possible “AI” startup company actually has potential and is worth investing time into for the interview process.

I do understand that I speak from a position of relative privilege as I do have a job and a lot of my talented peers and Juniors would pounce on any opportunity to break into the industry. But my general skepticism of AI in software development and society makes me not entertain these requests at all.

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Smallpaul@reddit

The idea that one cannot build a solid business on generative AI is crazy, but you do you. I have added generative features to our product suite and a) customers love them, b) they can tolerate the occasional error, c) our margins are fat, d) they pay extra for them and e) we have a choice of several vendors for inferencing, including open source (but not at QUITE the same quality level yet)

defenestrated_badger@reddit

There's this persistent one that keeps emailing me about relocating to NYC.

I'm not looking for a new job right now, but hell no with how much it costs to rent and live in NYC.

LateToTheParty013@reddit

milk them and move on when the VC money dries up. They d easily pay you $4-500k if you have the experience.

Material_Policy6327@reddit

Yeah that salary is not reality for most of these companies.

Glad-Researcher2738@reddit

Very few, if any, outside of the likes of Anthropic or OpenAI, offer that much money for base salary assuming OP is being reached out for senior level roles. Even staff swes at those startups don't make that much in base.

And for many of those startups the equities will end up being worthless.

I am an applied AI scientist and most of the ones reaching out to me are basically just OpenAI or Claude wrappers. Oh you think building an agent to handle calendars is gonna make you billions? Yeah no I can do that in a day and open source it. Basically it’s like the crypto hype. Most will be useless companies in 2-3 years at best

Mundane-Charge-1900@reddit

In my experience, the recruiters for these kinds of companies are behaving in extremely desperate ways.

I had to demand one stop trying to contact me after they tried to friend me on LinkedIn, emailed, DM’d, texted, called me on the phone, then in the voicemail said they’d call back again tomorrow if they didn’t hear back.

If these jobs were hot, they wouldn’t spam so much.

Even the big AI labs seem very insistent with repeated emails and are offering high cash pay plus a lot of stock. Nobody is doing that if they can hire easily.

jay_boi123@reddit (OP)

Of course I am actively seeking opportunities outside of Intuit right now. But I’m looking for a remote friendly role or a role based in Texas. None of these AI companies offer those options as they all seem to be congregating in the SF hive of AI companies.

Ok_Slide4905@reddit

All the VC-backed startups parrot the same work policies that are set by the investor class. The established VCs effectively set corporate policy for startups and while founders focus on innovation and execution.

VCs are heavily leveraged in SF real estate and use high rents to balance risk. Hence the bizarre practice of startups burning capital on expensive rents that could be utilized elsewhere.

IPv6forDogecoin@reddit

VCs are heavily leveraged in SF real estate and use high rents to balance risk in their portfolios.

It's all so performative. They pay huuuuge sums of money for leases but design the office like they're squatting in it.

I spoke and interviewed with a few. Many of them are essentially SaaS startups trying to sell their services by claiming they have new LLM-powered features. The previous generation of SaaS startups are also hiring and working on their own LLM-powered features as well (who aren't these days btw).

Melodic_Crow_3409@reddit

Well, don't expect stability.

interrupt_hdlr@reddit

AI wrappers are like companies that were building Twitter apps, one announcement away from shutting down

throwaway_0x90@reddit

"but my instinct is to avoid these companies. I believe that their compute and generative AI cost means that they will almost always run at a loss and relying so heavily on generative AI (a medium known to hallucinate) seems like a recipe for disaster. "

You don't join a startup if you're seeking stability. You join because you're seeking opportunity and growth and lotto tickets of equity that could be life changing money.... or zero.

TheBoringDev@reddit

Working for a startup you know is doomed is a terrible experience , I wouldn’t recommend it.

But you almost never truly ***know*** it's doomed. You may strongly suspect it, but you don't know for certain.

So blindly trust that the executives you’ve seen repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot know what they’re doing? I don’t understand understand the point of this comment, working for a startup you strongly suspect is going to fail is demotivating and a good way to burn yourself out.

To each their own. I learned a great deal in those years and is the primary reason I am where I am now.

obelix_dogmatix@reddit

Yes. Not every AI-centric startup is going to make it. I as a rule in general ignore companies if I am not a fan of their product. I understand not everyone is in a position to do so, but this has served me well till now.

Early_Rooster7579@reddit

It’s the same as crypto companies. Expect cool tech, really high pay and like 6-12 months of employment lol

mehtheswede@reddit

I find it silly to completely disregard a company based on them using LLMs to write software. It is the way the industry is going whether you like it or not. So might as well build that skillset.

micseydel@reddit

It is the way the industry is going whether you like it or not

Doesn't this depend on whether people are willing to pay for the stuff once the subsidies are gone?