u/dak78 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Actually they have some really great alumni: like the Principal Engineer at Tinder was recently posted and many people in ML and AI companies. Theres also people with regular engineering jobs but any alumni that come back have legit work experience.
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Yeah +1, my understanding is they want MORE EXPERIENCED alumni and not alumni who just got jobs, etc...
That said, that person was identified as a "Faculty", which has four very important consequences:
1. Since Codesmith is a "school", has important meaning (for regulation) and this person might be more tied now to Codesmith than they think, maybe they are fully aware but I'm curious if all these new "Faculty" will be aware of this.
2. Conflicts of Interest. Companies generally barely allow people to be lightweight mentors and a lot of the top companies block people from being the "Faculty" of a school without disclosure and review for conflicts of interest. I know at Meta this was a major thing and there was a very non-fun conflict review process that blocked a lot of things. So I'm hoping if someone is an alumni and wants to be a "Faculty" or is going to be identified as one, that they go through the conflict review process at their company first.
3. I talk to a lot of industry engineers all day long and a lot aren't a fan of the OSP projects (I'm sure alumni are) but alumni who have been in industry for a really long time and have legit industry experience might be more realistic about things. Codesmith will have to adapt the culture of positive reinforcement and overcoming imposter syndrome to confronting a reality that OSPs are not mid level and senior projects.
4. Compensation. The most recent E5 offers at Meta I've worked on are in the $500K range, and Codesmith is offering alumni that have messaged me in the $45 an hour range ($90K). I think the strength of the community will help get people to join up no problem, but people will be underpaid "Faculty" and if they are asked to do too much work for that rate, it will be a revolving door of alumni. If they have to spend a lot more on them, it will cost WAY MORE than hiring instructors, and it's a catch 22 problem. Solvable but just a ton of variables to adjust and fine tune.
**ALL OF THESE ARE SOLVABLE PROBLEMS BUT AGAIN - RISK! WE HAVEN'T SEEN THEM SOLVED YET. If they are solved, great, if they aren't solved, it might not work out as planned.**