Post

"We're all worried," as what it means to do research (in my field, Theoretical CS) seems to be shifting, and shifting fast. What to do? Senior researchers must lead by example, knowing that not everything will pan out. What I'm suggesting below may not work everywhere, but here's my own advice: 1/

🧵To juniors: - Move away from LPUs, at all costs. (Nobody likes to think of their own paper as LPU: what I mean here is "a paper just good enough to be published in a fairly good conf even a year ago") These publications are most likely going to die, or not being valued any more, as flood-prone 2/

- go for exposition. Write, write well (if necessary, learn how to). Papers are meant to disseminate knowledge to others. Reading your work, things should "click": this is important, this is novel, this is the key takeaway. We'll no longer be competing on pages of derivations, that "flex" is gone 3/

(Technical skills will still be necessary of course, just no longer sufficient) - aim for the hard or interesting stuff (especially conceptual). Now is the time to go for the long, blue-sky-ish projects. Learn new areas, go deep. The times of competing on superficial breadth are gone (sorry, me) 4/

- Relatedly, go for something you are deeply passionate or curious about: if the next couple years are going to be (possibly) a struggle, at least don't let it be about things you don't really like or care about! 5/ (end of personal, biased advice for junior TCS researchers)

I find your advices nice, but how do they relate to the job market ? Does it allow/permit to fond a job in the current/near future situation?