Show notes
Vlad Feinberg is Google DeepMind’s pre-training area lead and I asked him all about how to land a job at a frontier lab like Google DeepMind, Anthropic or OpenAI.• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/• The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-donePodcast links:• YouTube: https://youtu.be/cDyi91onoJ8• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/google-deepmind-pre-training-leadThank you to this episode's sponsor for supporting my work:• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(00:33) Skills frontier labs need(08:45) The difference between AI research and engineering(21:41) Domains that matter for the frontier(30:50) Marketing yourself to frontier labs(35:13) Concrete steps engineers can take(38:29) Overview of pre-training areas(47:23) Jeff Dean spot bonus story(50:14) Favorite Gemini war story(58:59) Advice for his younger self(01:03:07) OutroWhere to find Vlad:• Personal Website: https://vladfeinberg.com/• Twitter/X: https://x.com/FeinbergVlad• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vladimirfeinberg/Where to find Ryan:• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpetermanReferenced in this episode:• How to Land a Job at a Frontier Lab: https://vladfeinberg.com/2026/05/10/how-to-land-a-job-at-a-frontier-lab.html• ThunderKittens: https://github.com/HazyResearch/ThunderKittens• Deedy's doomer Tweet: https://x.com/FeinbergVlad/status/2056383124829872466?s=20• Jacob Steinhardt's "Research as a Stochastic Decision Process": https://cs.stanford.edu/~jsteinhardt/ResearchasaStochasticDecisionProcess.html• The Scaling Book: https://jax-ml.github.io/scaling-book/• Dwarkesh and Reiner's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmkSf5IS-zw
