[dachworker]

Here's a question. Why isn't Wolfram Research considered a sexy employer? They have cool research and technical problems and cool software. I looked a bit into it but I could only see them hiring in 3rd world countries, and only contractors. So are they a bad employer or what gives?

[namirez]

I had a friend who worked there. A very smart Ivy League-educated math PhD. He was very critical of the work culture at Wolfram Research. Apparently in his experience Stephen Wolfram treated people badly.

[aleph_minus_one]

> Apparently in his experience Stephen Wolfram treated people badly.

Are you able/allowed to provide more details?

[namirez]

I’m a bit apprehensive since I don’t know SW personally, but what my friend described sounded like a borderline abusive behavior. Basically he treated people like they were stupid and shouted at them when they made mistakes.

[nomilk]

I think it’s a shared trait among the ultra successful (think: bezos, jobs, musk, wolfram), that they unrelentingly pursue good ideas. In that relentless pursuit, people will inevitably have their (bad) ideas shot down.

Wolfram becomes audibly irritated at bad ideas, but mostly only when they should have been better, more complete, better explained (in their interest of time, for example) etc.

I think most of those who work with him know that he pursues truth, not what will make people feel good in that moment/meeting.

I’ve worked around people who are the opposite and try to morph reality so that whatever flimsy idea is suggested is somehow considered ‘correct’, and it results in long term frustration and inefficacy.

[hughesjj]

> that they unrelentingly pursue good ideas.

They also unrelentingly pursue bad ones. 3D fire phone interface, boring company + everything with Twitter, trying to fight cancer with a fruitarian diet ....

[martinky24]

> bezos, jobs, musk, wolfram

One of those things is not like the other lol

[nomilk]

Jobs, because he didn’t do it himself?

The commonality is they all brought $1b+ ideas to market; they didn’t just have good ideas, but did the hard work necessary to execute on them.

[martinky24]

- They pay like shit (compared to "sexy employers")

- Headquartered in Champaign, Illinois (not a bad town, but not sexy)

- As "cool" as their software is, not a lot of people use it. Python is eating their lunch, ESPECIALLY outside of academia. Although, they're losing ground in academia as well

- Stephen Wolfram isn't a charismatic leader who is fun to work for. There's no shortage of stories of him short circuiting in meetings and treating employees disrespectfully.

- They're not doing quite as much cutting edge stuff (that matters, at least) these days. Their AI/ML suite isn't that interesting, numpy/scipy does a lot of numerical stuff better, Matlab does a lot of stuff (like digital signal processing, for example) better. And Python, being free and open source, is a better prototyping language for most stuff. Symbolic computing is probably the one place it is actually a leader in... but for so many applications in the real world (engineering, r&d, real-time algorithms, etc) symbolic computing simply isn't needed.

As you hint at, they can attract some talent because there are opportunities to work on some niche stuff that's hard to work on elsewhere. But that's a minority of roles at the company.

Source: Used to work there.

[bmitc]

I think Mathematica is cool, but it is my understanding that Maple is actually superior to Mathematica in symbolic calculations.

[dachworker]

Thanks for the insight. I used to be a mathematician and looked a bit into working as a numerical mathematician on numerical or optimization software. What I noticed is that salaries do tend to be significantly lower than FAANG. Maybe that's because it is a niche and there aren't lots of employers around doing that sort of work.

[sokoloff]

How does the market for numeric optimization software divided by the number of engineers required to create and maintain it compare to the market for "nearly any physical good, cloud computing, eyeballs-for-ads, watching videos, connecting with other humans, high quality computers and mobile devices, maps, email, and search" divided by the [larger] number of engineers required to create and maintain it?

Sales / potential gross profit per FAANG employee is high.

[namirez]

I believe the main reason is that the skillset in this domain has a small overlap with what is needed at FAANG. This is done mostly in academia and as such the salaries are in line with the salaries at universities.

[looofooo0]

I know some mathematician working for big chemical company which has a huge internal Fortran Software stack for numerical optimization.

[Suppafly]

>- They pay like shit (compared to "sexy employers")

How do they pay compared to other midwestern employers?

[martinky24]

Relatively reasonably, for Champaign cost of living. But "local midwestern employer salary" isn't sexy.

[Suppafly]

>But "local midwestern employer salary" isn't sexy.

True, but it's always funny when people compare midwestern salaries to FAANG companies, as if the cost of living is like 10x less in the midwest. I don't know the specifics of what wolfram pays, but my gut feeling has always been that it's likely pretty good. A lot of the other random math and tech adjacent companies in the area started by ex-wolfram employees and UIUC grads seem to be doing pretty well.

[martinky24]

Yeah, I don't disagree. But again, the original metric was "sexy". But you're definitely better off getting a remote big-tech adjacent job than working at Wolfram Research, if you've got those chops.

[NelsonMinar]

Here's one example why, an ugly incident involving Matthew Cook's work proving a theorem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cook#Work_with_Stephen...

[danpalmer]

I think they're very traditional – I don't think software or engineering is their edge, and I suspect they outsource a lot of that to cheaper locations – they seem themselves as being more research focused.

Their Glassdoor reviews used to be a bit dodgy too, nothing you wouldn't be able to guess after watching 10 minutes of any video of you-know-who though.

They are also just small, only a few hundred people if I remember correctly.

[dachworker]

Wait, isn't software their product? Or are you distinguishing between their infrastructural and their math/science libraries?

[bmitc]

I sent them an email asking what .NET version their .NET link library used, asking if it was still .NET Framework or if it had moved to .NET Core or 5+. The question seemed incomprehensible to them. They barely understood what I was asking, and I never heard back from them.

[danpalmer]

Software is their product, but my guess is there's a separation between the product and research side which will be filled with Phds, and the "build" side which I expect is outsourced or offshored.

What I really mean is that I don't think they see themselves as an engineering company in the way FAANG do, or an "AI" company, but probably more like a maths/science department at a university.

[bmitc]

I looked into it a while back and the synopsis was that you needed to move there and that they paid poorly.